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THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 



THE 
HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 



FRANCIS B.^PEARSON 

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, OHIO STATE 
UNIVEESITY 




CHICAGO 



NEW YORK 



ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY 



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Copyright, 1916, 

BY 

ROW, PETERSON & CO. 



AN '2e 1916 

©u\A420543 



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PREFACE 

It must be evident to all thoughtful persons that 
the high school stands upon the threshold of a 
larger career of effectiveness. The utterances in 
favor of socializing and vitalizing high-school work 
are prophetic. The changing conditions of life, 
both social and economic, seem to call for a read- 
justment in our high-school procedure. This call 
will be more insistent as time goes on, and the 
school which fails to heed the call will find itself 
relegated to a position of subordinate importance 
as a determining factor in social and economic 
affairs. Conceding, to the utmost, the influence of 
colleges of education and normal schools in the way 
of inculcating better methods of teaching, there 
still remains much for high-school teachers, them- 
selves, to do in the way of taking a generous survey 
of their work so as to give direction and potency 
to civilization. Tradition, alone, will not avail. 
The high school should lead, not follow; but this 
high function will not be attained until it can pre- 
view civilization and prepare the way. This privi- 
lege appertains to each individual teacher, nor can 
this function be either abrogated or delegated. 
Unless each teacher appreciates his own responsi- 



6 PREFACE 

bility in this high enterprise, the high school will 
not attain its maximum efficiency. 

This book is an appeal to the individual teacher 
to make the most of himself and his opportunities 
to the end that the high school may attain the full 
fruition of its purposes ; that education may have 
a larger content ; and that society, more and 
more, may become the beneficiary of high school 
influences. 

Columbus, Ohio, 
December 22, 1915. 



F. B. P. 



CONTENTS 

chaptee page 

Ikteoductiof 9 

I The Pkoblem 15 

II The High School 21 

III Okganization 32 

IV The Pkincipal 42 

V The Teachees ." 53 

VI The Pupils 65 

VII The Studies 76 

VIII The Teaching 89 

IX Discipline 100 

X College Influence 112 

XI The Recitation 124 

XII The Study-Lesson 137 

XIII Specialization 149 

XIV Examinations 162 

XV School Activities 174 

XVI Socialization 191 

XVII The Home and the School 207 

XVIII Motives in Teaching 220 

XIX CO-OPEEATION 234 

XX ExPEESsioN 248 

XXI Teaining foe Leisuee 262 

XXII MoEAL Teaining 274 

XXIII The High-School Peoblem 286 



INTRODUCTION 

During the past year it was proposed in several 
educational journals and in at least one State Legis- 
lature that tuition fees be exacted from all who 
attend high schools. The plea is made that the 
elementary schools are starved because of the large 
sums which go to the high schools and the colleges. 
If the idea of charging tuition in secondary schools 
is ever carried into effect, it will tend to create social 
distinctions similar to those found in England and 
on the Continent of Europe. One of the surprising 
things in European travel is the fact that American 
educators can visit schools abroad without discov- 
ering the radical difference between the school sys- 
tems of the Old World and those of the United 
States. The former were organized to perpetuate 
the distinction between the masses and the classes. 
Professor Paulsen who taught education at the Uni- 
versity of Berlin is authority for the statement that 
of ten thousand boys in attendance at the Volks- 
schule not one ever reaches the University. And yet 
the universities, at least in time of peace, are full of 
students. "Whence do they come! If the father is 
rich enough to pay the tuition which the government 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION 

exacts from pupils in the secondary schools, his son 
may spend the necessary years in preparation for 
the University. The boys whose parents cannot 
afford this expense, attend schools which aim to fit 
for vocations to which a university education is not 
essential. 

In the United States the effort has been to organize 
school systems which seek to offer the best educa- 
tion that the pupil will take. We have tried to build 
up school systems which, to use Huxley's phrase, are 
like an educational ladder on which any pupil, if he 
has the strength to climb, may ascend from the hum- 
blest homes through the free schools, including the 
high school, into the College and the University and 
thence into the learned and the technical vocations, 
sometimes into the highest positions in the gift of 
the people. Shall we abandon this ideal for the sake 
of the efficiency which is supposed to characterize 
European schools? Would such a policy not stifle 
some of the best talent now found in our elementary 
schools? Free text books make a secondary educa- 
tion possible to many a pupil who could otherwise 
not face the expense of schooling beyond the grades. 
The policy of charging tuition in the high school 
would close the door of opportunity against many 
of our brightest pupils. Under such a policy many a 
gem must remain unpolished and many a star 
unknown. 

There are today about forty vocations which 



INTRODUCTION 11 

require more or less of high school training by way 
of preliminary education. Many of them require the 
full equivalent of the four years of a standard high 
school course. Hence the pupil who quits school 
before graduation from a first-class school of sec- 
ondary grade, finds the door of opportunity closed 
against him in many directions. And the number of 
learned vocations is on the increase. More and more 
of the forms of skilled labor presuppose some knowl- 
edge of the arts and sciences. Hence new problems 
are constantly arising for our schools to solve. The 
attendance at our high schools is rapidly increasing 
and school officers find that accommodations which 
were supposed to be ample for twenty years to come, 
are outgrown in less than ^ve years. And if our 
secondary schools are to keep pace with the 
demands of the times, they must enlarge, not only 
their buildings, but also their scope and their 
curriculum of studies. 

The average man considers a trade school a good 
thing for his neighbor's son. For his own son he 
prefers a different type of schooling if the boy is 
willing to take it. Let it be hoped that through 
changes in the content of our courses of study all 
types of vocational schools will meet with favor and 
be considered worthy of patronage and public sup- 
port. 

The working people are ambitious to secure and 
in many instances have already secured an eight- 



12 INTRODUCTION 

hour working day. Whether this shall prove a curse 
or a blessing depends upon the manner in which the 
remaining hours of the day are spent. If the hours 
which are not devoted to bread-winning and money- 
getting, are spent in dissipation and riotous living, 
the eight-hour day will prove a curse instead of a 
blessing. If on the other hand the leisure hours are 
devoted to the things of the mind and the higher 
life, the shorter working day will be a source of 
uplift and progress. 

The high school has a function in training for both 
vocation and avocation. By vocation are usually 
meant the activities through which one earns a live- 
lihood for himself and family. The word avocation 
is sometimes used to convey the same idea; but when 
used in its stricter sense it denotes the activities with 
which the worker occupies himself when he is not 
engaged in the struggle for bread. The Great Teach- 
er said that man shall not live by bread alone. It 
helps to make life worth living if the pupil in the 
high school is taught to enjoy the things of the mind 
and the higher life. Literature, music, painting and 
the other fine arts afford sources of enjoyment far 
higher than the things we eat and drink and wear 
and the houses in which it is our privilege to dwell. 
In the secondary schools of every type the pupils 
should learn to think God's thoughts as revealed in 
nature and the best thoughts of the best men as 
enshrined in the printed pages of the shelves of the 



INTRODUCTION 13 

library. In the education of the future the school 
will be expected to train not merely for bread-win- 
ning and money-making but also for the activities 
which help to make life worth living. 

This volume from the pen of Professor Frank 
Pearson discusses the various phases of the high 
school problem as it today confronts the American 
people. The author has been a teacher, an editor, 
and a high school inspector. His chapters are help- 
ful and stimulating. His e^jperience and insight 
have fitted him in an eminent degree to speak with 
authority. I bespeak for his conclusions careful 
study by all who have to do with education in gen- 
eral or whose special field of work is found in the 
schools of secondary grade. 

NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER. 

Harrisburg, Pa. 

August 2, 1915. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 



CHAPTER I 
THE PROBLEM 

Statistical statement. — If all the young people wlio 
are enrolled in the high schools of onr country were 
arranged in a marching column, four abreast, and 
the ranks three feet apart, this column would extend 
a distance of more than one hundred and sixty miles. 
Or, to put it in another way, if these young people 
were traveling by rail, sixty people to a coach, and 
eight coaches to a train, it would require more than 
twenty-four hundred such trains to transport them; 
and these trains combined would extend more than 
four hundred miles. 

These statistical facts give some notion of the 
problem so far as numbers are concerned. But, even 
in point of numbers, these figures do not present the 
whole problem. In Massachusetts there are, in round 
numbers, sixty thousand enrolled in high schools and 
forty-five thousand others of high school age who 
are not in school. In Vermont there are fewer than 
six thousand in high school out of a possible twenty- 
is 



16 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

five thousand; and, in Illinois, about thirty-five per 
cent of the young people of high school age are either 
idle or engaged in unprofitable, or undesirable 
employment. All those who are not in school must be 
taken into account in taking a comprehensive view 
of the problem even on the numerical side. It is but 
truth to say that many of these boys and girls are 
out of school because the work of the high school 
did not make a strong appeal to them. 

Relation to absenteeism. — Hence, the solution of 
the problem must reckon with the absentees as well 
as with those whose names are found on the school 
records. With all our efforts to get at the real causes 
for the large exodus from the high schools no satis- 
factory explanation has been made and we still solace 
ourselves with the feeling that the young people, 
themselves, are at fault and not the school. The 
table is spread, we argue, and, if they do not come to 
the feast, the responsibility is theirs and not ours. 
If they say that they do not crave the food we serve 
we reply that both history and tradition go to prove 
that the food is palatable and nutritious and that 
they ought to like it whether they do or not. Thus, 
the school evades responsibility for absenteeism. 

Changing" conditions. — Another factor in the prob- 
lem is the fact that these young people are in a state 
of change, physical, mental, and spiritual. They are 
very certain that they want something but do not 
know clearly what it is or how to get it. They are 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 17 

full of energy but do not know liow to control and 
direct this energy to their own advantage. The 
engine has a full head of steam but the track has not 
been laid. Even their parents are doubtful as to the 
best course to pursue with them, and often confess 
failure in their dealings with their own children. 
These boys and girls are eager to assume the func- 
tions of men and women but have no clear notion as 
to what those functions are. They do not see things 
in right relations or proportions. The present is 
their all-in-all, and their faith is abiding that the 
future will take care of itself and them. They can- 
not ditferentiate major from minor and the distrac- 
tions of life often take a major place with them. In 
short, they are in a state of perplexing bewilderment. 
Their native impulses are driving them on, but they 
lack chart and compass to direct their course. 

Our problem, then, has to do with this vast number 
of young people in this condition of unrest and per- 
plexity and, in addition, the many thousands of 
others who are ignoring the high school altogether. 
Such a problem is sufficient in magnitude and 
importance to challenge the best thought of all who 
are, in any way, connected with high school work, 
boards of education, superintendents, supervisors, 
principals, teachers, and parents. Thoughtful con- 
sideration of the problem is certain to evoke many 
questions. Is the high school doing all that is pos- 
sible for these young people? Are the things that 



18 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

the high school is trying to do the best things to do, 
or are there others that woukl be better? Is the 
high school doing what it is doing in the best possible 
way? Who is commissioned to discover better things 
to do or better ways of doing what we are attempt- 
ing? How are these things to become an integral 
part of the high school regime ? 

Facing" the problem. — These and many other ques- 
tions of like import are inevitable as we stand facing 
the problem and they will not down. If we will not 
answer them we stand convicted of cowardice ; if we 
cannot answer them we stand convicted of ignorance. 
Either horn of the dilemma gives a feeling of dis- 
comfort, bnt, in this case, discomfort is a hopeful 
sign. Complacency will never bring the solution of 
the problem. Diagnosis must precede the prescrib- 
ing of remedies, and there will be no diagnosis until 
we become uncomfortable in the presence of our 
problem. If we have a passing feeling of pity and 
condemnation for the boy who leaves school and then 
forget him, we must be held accountable at the bar 
of civic economy for our indifference or dereliction. 
The conservation of boys and girls is highly impor- 
tant. They are too valuable to be wasted, not 
only in a moral sense but in a civic sense as well. 

The Ninety and Nine parable has a vital applica- 
tion in every high school, nor can its teaching be 
ignored with impunity. We may not emulate the 
wicked and rebellious Cain in the query '^Am'l my 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 19 

brother's keeper T' Any careful study of the prob- 
lem before us must assume that the school, in large 
measure, is responsible for every boy and girl of 
high school age. The State organizes, equips, and 
supports the school for all boys and girls and not for 
two-thirds of them. If we try to shift responsibility 
for absenteeism upon the home or upon the com- 
munity at large it is a tacit acknowledgment that 
we are unable to cope with the stronger pull of these 
two institutions, a running up of the white flag. 

When a man falls overboard there is great excite- 
ment and all interests are focused upon his rescue; 
but when the boy falls overboard the educational 
ship moves on its complacent way with but mild 
concern. When Huck Finn explained the apparent 
intention of Solomon to cut the child in two Jim 
remarked ^ ' What 's de diff 'ence 1 Plenty mo \ ' ' We 
may be lulled into complacency by the fact that the 
schools are crowded already, but it is far better and 
cheaper to build more schools than more prisons, 
and it cannot be denied that deserters from the 
school form a large part of the recruits for the 
prison. 

Then, on the physical side, we have constructed 
palatial buildings and supplied them with elaborate 
equipment at great expense, giving much serious 
thought to convenience and elegance, but, with all 
our material provision, there is a great host of young 
people who are standing aloof from the school, 



20 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

resisting the appeals of building, equipment, teach- 
ers, and even their companions. 

These young people who thus stand aloof are 
neither abnormal nor sub-normal but are quite like 
those who are enrolled in the schools, with kindred 
propensities, tastes, and aspirations. In the ideal 
high school order we shall have no such scholastic 
vagabondage as we now see just as, in the ideal 
society, there will be no tramps along the highways. 
We may not soon realize these ideal conditions in 
the school but life, at its best, is a striving toward 
the ideal and the school, itself, would be a sorry 
affair were it to rest content with what is. 

The educational Golden Age will see all young 
people of high school years enrolled in the schools, 
and will see these schools doing work so wide in its 
scope as to serve the needs of all these young people. 
Fresh air, wholesome food, education, and honest 
work will then be co-ordinate elements in the scheme 
of life for these young people and the men and women 
who teach in the school will be wise enough and 
sympathetic enough to make this ideal condition a 
reality. They will deeply appreciate the fact that 
all the boys and girls of the land are their problem 
and that books, courses of study, buildings, and 
equipment are subsidiary agencies. 



CHAPTER II 
THE HIGH SCHOOL 

High School defined. — It is not the purpose of this 
chapter to trace the genealogy of the high scliool 
back to its ancestors the academy and the Latin 
grammar school. That would lead us far afield into 
the domain of the history of education and that has 
been done so well in recent years that we are all 
fairly conversant with the historical development of 
schools in general, the high school included. It is 
rather the purpose here to discover, if possible, what 
the high school is, what it is liable or likely to be 
in future, and what it ought to be. 

Without under-valuing ancestry, it is well to give 
some consideration to posterity. It requires no 
prophetic vision to see that the high school of the 
future will differ from the high school of the present, 
for it is common knowledge that the high school is 
in a state of transition. "We are just now very busy, 
working at our tasks, while we are trying to discover 
what to do and how to do it. 

The caption of this chapter conjures up many 
pictures which portray a great variety of conditions, 
and all of these connected with high schools. Here 

21 



22 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

is a school of one room where a teacher and five 
pupils constitute the high school. There is a small 
case of books, a few books on the teacher's desk, a 
few maps, three or four pictures on the walls, a 
dictionary, and in addition the usual complement of 
school appurtenances. The teacher is a college grad- 
uate, a young woman of winning personality, and 
effective as a teacher. The pupils respect her to the 
verge of reverence and the spirit in that little group 
is excellent. In that community this is known as a 
high school. 

In the course of her first year this teacher visited 
a large city and spent a day in the great cosmo- 
politan high school. The experience produced in her 
a feeling of bewildering astonishment. She had 
never imagined that such a school could be. It had 
never occurred to her that so many people could be 
housed in one building, much less taught. She saw 
hundreds of pupils thronging the halls, at class 
intervals, and almost while she gazed the halls 
became empty and silent. Then she wondered what 
had become of all the people she had just seen. She 
knew they must be in the building but could not 
imagine where they were or what they were doing. 
When she looked at the roster of teachers and the 
daily program her astonishment was intensified. A 
tour of the building produced a succession of revela- 
tions. In one room she saw a group of boys with 
hammers, chisels, saws, and planes fashioning pieces 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PKOBLEM 23 

of wood into useful and artistic forms. In another 
room, other boys were doing similar work with iron. 
Still others were working in clay. She saw a bevy of 
girls engaged in cooking amid a profusion of culi- 
nary utensils, and others transforming fabrics into 
garments. Through open doors she saw groups 
busily engaged with experiments in chemistry and 
physics. The typewriter room seemed less like a 
school than any other room because of the noise. 
She was accustomed to quiet in her own school. 
When she reached rooms where the teaching of lan- 
guage, history, and mathematics was in progress she 
began to get her bearings once more, for these things 
took her mind back home. The more she pondered 
the more she wondered that any one person could 
arrange and direct all these people and all these 
activities. Among so many pupils how would they 
discover if one was absent or tardy! How could the 
pupils find the right room, and how could they know 
what class came next ! How would the principal dis- 
cover the absence of a teacher among so many? How 
could they learn the names of so many pupils! 

These and a host of other questions of like import 
kept recurring to her during the day, but with no 
satisfying answers. One day was not sufficient for 
them all. The school was too big, from every angle, 
to be comprehended in a single day. For weeks she 
found her thoughts going back to that school, trying 
to grasp its complete significance, little realizing 



24 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

that she was attempting the impossible, that it would 
require weeks for a teacher in that schoool to do what 
she had tried to accomplish in one day. 

These two pictures give us the extremes of the 
high-school situation and prove that the name we 
use in designating these schools is quite an elastic 
term. By reason of this elasticity we are wont to 
interpret the content of the name by our own exper- 
ience. A high school is the sort of school in which 
we happen to be teaching. Indeed, we are prone to 
think of our school as the high school, whether it is 
small or large. By reason of this fact it is not easy 
to formulate a definition of the high school even if 
that were desirable. 

High Schools differentiated. — Certain it is that 
size alone is not the determining factor of supe- 
riority. A small high school may be better than a 
large one, all depending upon the management, the 
teaching, and the spirit. Nor does the character of 
the building determine the ranking of the school. 
A palatial building, whose walls and environs bear 
the evidences of vandalism in the form of class 
numerals and such like manifestations of misdirected 
enthusiasm, gives the impression of incongruity. In 
the presence of such conditions on the outside, the 
conviction persists that things are not altogether 
right on the inside of that building, even though the 
building, itself, is majestic. Hence, the building and 
the equipment are not to be regarded as reliable 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 25 

exponents of the scliooL They are useful auxiliaries, 
but they are liabilities as well as assets. We are 
inclined to tolerate a mediocre school in a poor build- 
ing, but not a mediocre school in an excellent 
building. 

We must even go beyond the personnel of the 
teaching corps, the text-books, the course of study, 
and the daily work in order to give a just estimate 
of the school. We must inquire into its effective- 
ness as an agency of society in accomplishing the 
purposes for which it is supported. If the school is 
intended to promote the co-operative well-being of 
the people of the community and thus render that 
community favorable to right living, then we have 
a standard by which we may test the effectiveness 
of the school. 

The test of a high school. — The supreme test lies in 
the question Do the activities of the school function 
in right activities in society? Thus, it becomes 
necessary for us to make a survey of the community 
in order to rank the school. Is the community a 
better place in which to live by reason of the presence 
of the school! Is the government of the community 
in more capable hands because of the work of the 
school? Have poverty and crime decreased through 
the influence of the school? Are people more self- 
respecting, self-reliant, and self-supporting because 
of the school? Do the artisans of the community 
work more efficiently and honestly as a result of the 



26 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

school activities 1 Do honest weights, measures, and 
materials of construction obtain more largely in the 
community as an outgrowth of school work? Do 
the people read a higher grade of books because of 
having literature in the high school? Are the deco- 
rations of the homes more artistic because of the 
teaching of art! Is the colored supplement of the 
newspaper less objectionable, and the bill-boards less 
bizarre because of the art department? Is the home 
more economically, methodically, and artistically 
administered because domestic science has been 
taught in the high school for a period of years ? Do 
women dress more sensibly and more becomingly 
because of the teaching of domestic art in the school? 
Do the people employ their leisure time more profit- 
ably because of habits formed in the school ? Is there 
a higher appreciation of art, literature, music, 
nature, and the amenities of society because of the 
principles that have been inculcated by the school? 
Do we as a people study history more ardently and 
more intelligently because of the teaching of history 
in the school? 

These questions might extend indefinitely, but the 
foregoing are sufficient to show what the real test of 
the school is. Such questions as the above may con- 
stitute a severe test but the high school should not 
shrink from any test, however severe, that will arrive 
at the truth. If society is not advancing in the 
particulars that have been enumerated, and, if the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 27 

high school is responsible, in any degree, for this 
lack of advancement, then the high school ought to 
be the pioneer explorer into the causes of retarda- 
tion that it may become an intelligent seeker for the 
remedy. 

The function of the school.— If, to illustrate, the 
quest of the high school has been for mere knowledge 
rather than wisdom, and society has suffered from 
this restricted activity, then it behooves the school 
to enlarge its scope and intensify its plans and pur- 
poses. Will the high school conform to the changing 
conditions of society or is it to become potent enough 
to bring about changes, to modify, and give color 
and flavor to the activities of society? Is it to be a 
leader or a mere follower! These are questions that 
confront the high school, and every school official 
as well as every teacher. Nor can any teacher evade 
responsibility for the answers. 

Since ^*a tree is known by its fruit, '^ we must 
examine the fruit' with great care before we can, 
with intelligence, enter upon a course of pruning 
and grafting. If the teacher of history finds, upon 
careful examination, that the pupil ceases to study 
history when he discontinues school work, then it is 
incumbent upon this teacher to discover a way by 
which he may project the work of the school into the 
life of the community. He proclaims, with emphasis, 
in his classes that every intelligent citizen should be 
a student of history, but finds, through his survey, 



28 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

that many people in the community, who lay claim to 
a goodly degree of intelligence, are not students of 
history, and, among these, some of his own pupils. 
Either his theory is wrong or, else, his teaching has 
been more or less ineffective. Moreover, the respon- 
sibility, in some measure, is his and he cannot 
escape it. 

If shops dealing in wall-paper continue, year after 
year, to display flamboyant patterns, the department 
of art must assume some of the responsibility. It 
is not a flattering commentary upon this department 
that it cannot elevate the taste of the people even 
in the matter of wall-paper. Indeed, if art and 
physiology had done their ^ ^ perfect work ' ' we ought 
to have arrived at a state of civilization, by now, 
when wall-paper would be but an unpleasant 
memory. 

Many people say that they have not looked at a 
Latin book since they graduated, but that does not 
prove that Latin is not a worthy study. It simply 
means that the teaching was such that it did not 
carry over into the after-school life of the pupil. On 
the other hand, there are many who received, in the 
high school, an impetus in the study of Latin that 
has continued through the years, and to whom Latin 
books have been a constant source of recreation and 
delight. The teachers of the former class have much 
occasion for meditation; the teachers of the latter 
class occasion for gratification. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 29 

The High School a democracy. — The high school 
is the heart of the school process. Just as the blood 
flows into and out from the heart, so life flows into 
and out from the high school. Democracy assumes 
the presence of men and women and, since the high 
school receives young people as they are entering 
the domain of manhood and womanhood, it becomes 
to them the place and means of preparation for their 
work as citizens. In point of fact, the high school 
should constitute an integral part of life for these 
young people. Just where preparation ceases and 
actual life-work begins has not been clearly revealed. 
The daily round of work on the part of every man 
and woman is a preparation for better and greater 
achievements in the days to come. So with these 
young people. Their daily tasks are a part of real 
life and their high-school experiences cannot be 
reduced to the plane of mere preparation. 

It is inconceivable that the boy who has been well 
taught in the subject of agriculture will cease to be 
interested in this subject upon receiving his diploma. 
Such teaching would amount to a travesty. So 
with the subject of civics. This subject, if well 
taught, lays upon every boy and every girl some 
measure of responsibility in civic affairs during the 
entire high-school period, whether it be four years 
or six years, and thus makes them conscious of gov- 
ernment in the school and, also, in society. Living 
in this atmosphere and feeling some responsibility 



30 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

for government tliey are all the while learning to do 
while they are doing. We may well call this the 
laboratory method in the science and practice of 
government and the activities of these young people 
after graduation will be but a continuation of their 
activities in the high school. 

Vocational and cultural studies. — The line of de- 
marcation between vocational studies and cultural 
studies is yet to be discovered. In the view of civics, 
as just suggested, it is clearly vocational in that it 
projects itself into the duties and functions of citi- 
zenship. To be sure, the subject has its cultural side 
as well, and we may well rejoice that many school 
subjects combine the vocational and the cultural. 
History is generally classed among cultural subjects, 
but a member of Congress has become conspicuous 
because of his wide and accurate knowledge of his- 
tory. To him it is vocational, since because of his 
knowledge of the subject he has won the admiration 
and confidence of his colleagues and so is able to 
pursue his vocation with far greater success. 

Chemistry may be a cultural study to the minister 
but it is a vocational , study to the physician. Agri- 
culture may be a cultural study to the man of letters 
but it is both cultural and vocational to the farmer. 
Greek and Latin are accounted strictly cultural 
studies but there are many men and women to whom 
they may be properly called vocational. And so we 
might proceed through the entire list. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 31 

Conclusions reached.— It must be evident, there- 
fore, that the work of the high school is, in a very 
real sense, a part of the life-work of every pupil, and 
to take the view that the high school is detached 
from real life is to go wide of the truth. We are all 
familiar with experiments in co-operative high- 
school work and there is much testimony in proof 
of its efficacy. Two boys pair off in joint activities. 
One works in the shop for a week while the other 
pursues work in the school. During the next week 
the order is reversed. The life of the boy in the 
school is as real as the life of the boy in the shop. 
So, too, we have continuation high schools, and night 
high schools, and the work in such schools is a part 
of the life of those who are enrolled in these schools. 

The high school, then, is a democratic institution 
where democracy is practiced and nurtured for the 
elevation and strengthening of the larger democracy 
of which the high school is an integral part. If we 
subscribe to this definition of the high school we 
shall gain a vantage point from which we may see 
all the activities of the school, as they pass in review, 
and . determine whether these activities are making 
their maximum contributions to the well-being of 
society. 



CHAPTEE III 
ORGANIZATION 

Importance of organization. — Since, then, the high 
school is a democracy working within and for the 
well-being of a larger democracy, the problem of 
organization is seen, at once, to be fundamentally 
important. To organize the high school effectively 
is a difficult and delicate task, and the task is all the 
more delicate and difficult because the elements com- 
posing the organism are almost wholly human ele- 
ments. These human elements, if rightly and right- 
eously articulated, are the strength and glory of the 
high school, but, if there is maladjustment, they 
become both a menace and a weakness. In the case of 
a piece of mechanism a lack of proper adjustment of 
parts renders the machine merely neutral ; but, in the 
case of human elements, a lack of right adjustment 
and articulation renders the organism dynamically 
negative and there ensues disorder if not disruption. 

No high school has, as yet^ been so effectively 
organized that all the elements composing it have 
attained their maximum of efficiency. No high 
school can be found in which every teacher and every 
pupil is doing his possible best both for himself and 

32 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 33 

for society. Teachers may be working to the utmost 
limits of their strength and still fail to win the high- 
est results for the school and for the community. 
There may be a wrong adjustment of teacher to 
pupil, in which case neither attains his highest effi- 
ciency. The assumption of omnipotence and omni- 
science on the part of the teacher is certain to create 
a situation that militates against harmony and the 
pupil becomes insubordinate, or, else, discontinues 
that study or leaves school altogether. 

The High School and the prison. — In the organiza- 
tion of prisons the principle of repression predomi- 
nates; but, in the organization of the high school, 
the largest possible freedom is desirable and useful. 
In the prison only strict obedience is required; but 
the high school strives to inculcate and stimulate, 
in the highest degree, right initiative. This must be 
true seeing that the high school is a democracy for 
initiative by the individual is one of the fundamental 
characteristics of a democracy, and, unless the pupils 
are trained to act upon their own initiative in the 
high school, they will not be able to exercise their 
functions in the larger democracy. 

The boy who applies the teaching of civics to the 
activities of his own home finds it comparatively 
easy to extend his interests to the neighborhood, then 
to the community, and so on, by natural gradations, 
to the state and the nation. Once the habit of civics 
is formed there is no difficulty in widening the scope 



34 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

of its application. Civic consciousness renders the 
possessor alert to all the civic needs of the entire 
community. So, also, in the matter of initiative. 
The pupils, in whom the power of initiative has been 
cultivated for a term of years, finds no strain or 
stress in passing over into the duties and responsi- 
bilities of the larger democracy. In order to foster 
initiative there must be accorded to pupils the great- 
est possible freedom that is consistent with good 
government. In this respect, the organization of the 
school differs radically from the organization of the 
prison where repression obtains and where authority 
is constantly in evidence. 

Officials who address themselves to the task of 
organizing the high school are confronted with con- 
siderations of vital import. To begin with, they must 
be able to sense the real meaning of civilization. 
They must know not only what society is but their 
vision must penetrate the future so as to discover the 
probable future needs and demands of society. Un- 
less they can anticipate the needs of society in the 
years to come they will not be able to make wise 
provision for them. Tradition cannot be made the 
basis of organization. The wise engineer keeps his 
eyes on the tract in front without great concern as 
to the track already passed over. 

Socializing the schooL — ^If we succeed in socializ- 
ing the high school, it will be done through the 
processes inherent in and growing out of organiza- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 35 

tioii. We must begin at the center and work out- 
ward. External applications will be but veneer and 
patch-work and will not get to the core of the prob- 
lem. Too long have we considered the school as a 
thing apart and detached from society, and, hence, 
the difficulty we find in our efforts to cause society 
and the school to work in unison. We shall not suc- 
ceed in uniting them until we come to regard the 
school as an integral part of society and all the school 
activities as a part of the day ^s work. 

When this conception obtains we shall see to it 
that all the elements in the school organism are so 
adjusted and articulated as to make the largest 
possible contribution to society. Then will the high 
school and society be regarded as co-ordinate and 
co-operating agencies acting and reacting upon each 
other for the common good. All the activities of 
society will then become a part of the subject-matter 
for careful consideration by the school. No longer 
will one period be set apart in the class in English, 
and only in this class, for a survey of current events 
for these events will be made a part of the warp and 
woof of every class exercise in all subjects. The 
deliberations of congress, of the legislature, the city 
council, the chamber of commerce, the county com- 
missioners, the township trustees as well as of all 
other legislative and civic organizations will be a 
part of the working material of the school, and the 
teacher who fails to utilize this material will be made 



36 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

conscious of the fact that he is in the way of neu- 
tralizing the work of the school in its relation to 
society. 

Test of the teacher.~But the teacher cannot use 
this material unless he knows what it is. Eight here 
is the crucial test of the teacher as a socializing 
agency in the school regime. He must know physics, 
of course, if he is teaching this subject, and he must 
know physics also in its application to the problems 
of the larger democracy. If this phase is made clear 
in the class, the pupils will see that their circle is a 
part of the larger circle, and that every advance they 
make in their own circle is an advance toward the 
limits of the larger circle. Then, it will not be neces- 
sary for the teacher to justify the study of the sub- 
ject for the pupils will justify it for themselves. 

The attitude of the teacher, therefore, toward his 
subject in its relation to society is of prime impor- 
tance. When the attitude of all teachers in the school 
is right, in this respect, they automatically com- 
bine into a corps, because they are animated by a 
common purpose. They meet on the plane of this 
common purpose without any abatement of indi- 
viduality. Actuated by this high purpose of making 
their school fulfill its mission most effectively, the 
teachers will move in the same direction, in whole- 
some unison, sensing the plans of the school and 
executing them with fine zeal, knowing the expecta- 
tions of the principal before they are expressed, and 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 37 

even anticipating his desires as to the conduct of 
school affairs. Snch a corps of teachers is the right 
arm of the principal in his many-sided task, as well 
as his chief joy. 

If there is one member of the teaching group who 
proves to be a discordant element, unison and har- 
mony are destroyed and the school suffers accord- 
ingly. The teacher who cannot work in harmony 
with the other teachers of the school should seek 
another field of endeavor voluntarily or otherwise, 
and that without delay. Better a surgical operation 
than that the school decline from its high estate. 

The grouping of pupils. — Another phase of the 
work of organization is the grouping of pupils, and 
here large wisdom and sympathetic interest are need- 
ful. If the organizer could only know in which 
group, with which teacher, and in which branches 
each pupil could work most effectively, and assign 
the pupils accordingly it would prove a great boon 
to the school and to society. The pupil who is mis- 
placed in the organism deserts the school to gain his 
freedom, whereas the theory of the school is to have 
no misfits and no lack of freedom. The boy of high- 
school age wants to be and has a right to be an 
individual and not a cog in a wheel. 

It is unfortunate that more care is not exercised in 
placing pupils when they enter high school. They 
are bustled about, very often, with strict commands 
to do this or that with but scant reference to their 



38 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

aptitudes, their inclinations, or their affiliations. 
The school seems to be in such a hurry to start the 
machinery that boys and girls often are made to 
feel that they are negligible quantities, or, at best, 
mere specimens to be labeled and classified. 
. If the principal and the teachers could come to 
know these pupils a year in advance of their entrance 
to high school the mortality among first-year pupils 
would undoubtedly be greatly diminished. A whole 
month might be profitably spent with some pupils 
in getting them adjusted in congenial groups, with 
the right teachers, and in the studies to which they 
are best adapted. Sometimes a principal seems to 
think it a virtue to have his program in running 
order on the first day, heedless of the disappoint- 
ments, the heart-burnings, and the tears, due to a 
lack of wise organization. 

The question of readjustment. — When people re- 
move into another neighborhood, days or even weeks 
elapse before they become comfortable in their new 
environment. But we expect boys and girls to adjust 
themselves, in comfort, to new conditions in a single 
day. Time should be given to them to become accli- 
mated. The minimum of class-work and the maxi- 
mum of sympathetic personal conferences should be 
the order of procedure with these recruits for the 
first week or more. In the end, it will be found that 
the time thus spent was not lost ; quite the contrary. 

In the grammar school there was a teacher at hand 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 39 

all the while to whom they could appeal. But when 
they enter the high school we throw them upon their 
own resources with a sort of reckless sink-or-swim 
finality that bewilders and discourages them. We 
signal the train to start and they can clamber on 
board as best they may. 

We make no special effort to get their point of 
view, but expect them to get ours on the instant. In 
our eagerness not to waste time, we waste some of 
the finer qualities of boys and girls, the very quali- 
ties, too, that are fundamental in making effective 
our school democracy. If we would but take the 
time and the trouble to get their point of view, we 
would make many discoveries that would stand us 
in good stead later on. We assume that we are 
according privileges to them, whereas they may look 
upon these as burdens. This may seem to us as 
kindness, but they interpret it as coercion. 

Then, again, these first-year pupils need and have 
a right to much individual attention, because of new 
conditions and new studies, but, very often, there are 
so many in the group that this personal attention 
becomes well-nigh impossible. No group of begin- 
ners should exceed twenty, even though thirty is 
the established maximum for high-school groups. 

Still further, these beginners need and have a 
right to the most skilfull teachers in the school. 
They need expert guidance through the mazes of new 
subjects and wise organization demands that the best 



40 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

teachers in the corps be assigned to first-year pupils. 
The more experienced teachers sometimes make it 
evident that they think they have earned immunity 
from the so-called drudgery of first-year work, fail- 
ing to see, apparently, that their acquired experience 
and skill should be deposited, as an asset of the 
school, where it will further the best interests of the 
school. Their attitude savors of aristocracy and 
such aristocracy has no place in the high-school 
democracy. By consulting their own inclinations 
towards ease and comfort, they may sacrifice the 
interests of these beginners and so cause the tone of 
the school to decline. It will be a boon to the high 
school when every teacher comes to feel it is an 
honor to be assigned to any place where his services 
will best promote the highest efficiency of the school. 
Evaluating the studies. — Another element that 
must be carefully considered in connection with the 
scheme of organization is the value of each study, 
or branch, to be pursued. We must challenge every 
study at the door of the school and demand of it a 
valid reason for seeking admittance. If it can cite no 
reason beyond tradition, then it should be excluded. 
We must know that it will contribute to the 
strength, or the graces of our democracy, and so be 
a contribution to society before it can gain entrance. 
The spirit of our school democracy is of more 
importance than any branch of study or any text- 
book, and the fostering of this right spirit must be 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 41 

our first concern. Our plan of organization has to do 
with tliis school, and with this community, and we 
need not concern ourselves with schools in other 
places or in other times. We may not, with impu- 
nity, drag the boy three times around the walls 
behind some traditional chariot, merely because the 
walls, the boy, and the chariot are in existence. 

Every teacher and every pupil must be dynamic 
or the school will not attain its greatest possible 
potency. This being true, and the studies being but 
tools in the hands of teachers and pupils, we must 
see to it that only such studies are introduced as 
will beget and perpetuate the dynamic attitude in 
every member of the school. To make and keep all 
agencies of the school dynamic is the large problem 
in the plan of organization, for only such elements 
will give power, dignity, and grace to our democracy. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE PRINCIPAL 

The principal's relation to the community. — In 

order to estimate somewhat definitely and compre- 
hensively the characteristics that inhere in an effec- 
tive high-school principal it is important to hold in 
mind constantly the function of the high school in 
its relation to the community at large. The prin- 
cipal derives his position and authority from the 
larger democracy through its accredited representa- 
tives upon the implied assumption that he will make 
adequate returns. These returns are to be rendered 
in terms of citizenship in that the pupils, at the con- 
clusion of their high-school course, are supposed to 
be able and willing to perform their functions as 
members of society with a largely increased degree 
of efficiency. 

When business enterprises are organized and capi- 
tal is invested, the stockholders fully expect the 
manager to make returns in the form of satisfactory 
dividends. In the case of the high school, the stock- 
holders invest not only the money necessary for 
building, equipment, and salaries, but also, what is 
even more important, four years of the time and 

42 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 43 

energy of their children. If the parents were willing 
to avail themselves of the services of their children 
during these years, on the farm, in the shop, in the 
factory, or in the home, life might have for them less 
of sacrifice and more of comfort. But, just as many 
parents deprive themselves of luxuries or even com- 
forts that they may invest in a savings account, so 
they invest these years of their children in the high 
school, at personal sacrifice, if need be, in the full 
expectation that the investment will prove profitable. 

Or, to view the matter from another angle, if these 
young people were to serve an apprenticeship of four 
years in any industrial or commercial activity, their 
parents would fully expect that they would emerge 
from their apprenticeship well equipped to acquit 
themselves with credit in the line of work that had 
absorbed their time and efforts during these years. 

The analogy holds in the work of the high school. 
The pupils serve an apprenticeship of four years in 
a democracy and the community has full warrant for 
the conviction that these four years will fit the young 
people to acquit themselves well as citizens and give 
them such intelligent skill as will prove an asset in 
the larger democracy. 

Herein lies the chief investment of parents in the 
school, and authority is delegated to the principal 
as the manager of this important enterprise. As the 
manager of a commercial enterprise is amenable to 
the stockholders, so the principal is amenable to the 



44 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

entire community for such conduct of the school as 
will render back the largest possible dividends of 
proficient and efficient citizenship. 

Importance of the principal's work. — This view of 
the matter renders text-books, apparatus, school 
exercises, of whatever nature, building, and all other 
appliances but subsidiary means to an end. The 
business must pay dividends or the charge of in- 
efficiency will be laid against it. Emphasis should 
be placed, in this connection, upon the fact that the 
school is not charged with the responsibility of turn- 
ing back to society artisans and artists, but men and 
women capable of assuming the functions of citizens. 
If their attitude toward society is right and this 
attitude has been grooved into a habit, they will 
readily find worthy work to do and they will do it 
worthily. 

This, then, is the large task of the principal. He 
is the intermediary between society and the school. 
With one hand he must feel the pulse of civilization 
and with the other he must direct all the manifold 
activities of the school. He must have both sight 
and vision; sight, to detect any grain of dust that 
will lessen the efficiency of the school mechanism, 
and vision to see the real meaning of life, as a whole. 
He must be cosmopolitan and generously imbued 
with the spirit of democracy, in order to be effective 
in his environment. He may be neither an autocrat 
nor a martinet ; for the autocrat is incompatible with 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PKOBLEM 45 

democracy, and the role of martinet is distinctly a 
prison role. 

He can be forceful without being tyrannical; he 
can be genial without being flaccid ; he can be digni- 
fied without being either rigid or frigid; he can be 
pervasive without being officiously intrusive; and 
he can be a gentle man as well as a gentleman with- 
out being weak. If he is master of the situation, 
loquacity will not be necessary ; if he is not, loquacity 
will not make him so. He knows that real achieve- 
ments require no garnishing of words. He has read 
the fable of the wind and the sun to good purpose, 
and knows that the silent power of the sun succeeded 
where the blustering wind failed. He is fully con- 
scious of his authority but holds it in reserve to be 
used only in extreme emergencies when nothing else 
will avail. 

The principal as a leader. — Furthermore, the prin- 
cipal should possess the quality of leadership. The 
harmony and social welfare of any community 
depend upon the extent to which collective thinking 
prevails. If the trend of thinking is in the same 
direction, citizens are drawn together, and away from 
their differences of creed, of party, and of social 
status and unite upon the plane of a common purpose 
to work in unison for the common good. When men 
and women have like ideals and standards they speak 
a common language and this tends toward commu- 
nity unification. The principal, therefore, should be 



46 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

a man of such breadth of attainments and such 
strength of character as to become the exemplar of 
the ideals and standards that should obtain in the 
school and in the community. Just as the boy grew 
into the likeness of the Great Stone Face, so the 
pupils absorb the ideals and standards of the school, 
as exemplified by the principal, and, later, become 
the exponents and advocates of these ideals and 
standards in the larger democracy. 

The principal should be able to create such situa- 
tions in the school as will stimulate right educative 
responses on the part of the pupils. These responses, 
by repetition, ultimately groove into habits and these 
habits, at length, become assets of the larger democ- 
racy, giving direction and color to all the activities 
of the community. Whether the press creates or 
merely reflects public sentiment has often been the 
subject of debate, but careful investigation has dem- 
onstrated pretty clearly that the higher the ideals 
and standards of a community, and the broader the 
intelligence of the people, through the channels of 
formal education, the more elevated the tone of cur- 
rent literature. It is quite evident that the press 
caters to the wants of society even though it is striv- 
ing, at the same time, to make contributions to its 
needs. 

Hence it is that whatever ideals and standards the 
principal desires to have ingrained in the life of the 
community, these he must inculcate in the minds of 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 47 

the pupils and bring about such frequent reactions 
that these ideals and standards may persist as habits. 

Such a task is worthy of the best efforts of a real 
leader — one who has intelligence, initiative, resource- 
fulness, patience, courage, and perseverance. He 
must see his problem at least four years in advance 
of the present, and the resultant achievement four 
3^ears hence must be but the realization of his dreams 
and plans today. His ideal will have been reached 
only when every man and woman in the community 
has a high-school diploma, has caught the spirit of 
democracy from the school, and is fitted to assume 
his duties as a member of society. In the view that 
has been taken, the cosmopolitan high school is 
typical, and the duties and interests of the principal 
are co-extensive with the activities of the entire 
community. 

The principal as president of the democracy. — In 
our concept of the high school as a complete working 
democracy, the principal is the president, the teach- 
ers constitute his cabinet, and the pupils are co-oper- 
ating agents. All these are working together to 
make the high school realize its large purpose. This 
view is not fanciful, but true in theory and in fact. 
The principal, therefore, should have the final word 
in the selection of teachers. To him should be 
accorded the privilege of choosing teachers who can 
best assist him in having his plans attain their high- 
est fruition. No board of education is competent to 



48 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

do this, and any board member, who arrogates to 
himself the right to select teachers for the high 
school, curtails the legitimate functions of the prin- 
cipal, and transgresses the tenets of courtesy. Such 
a course on the part of a board member is altogether 
illogical, and can be accounted for only as a political 
expedient. The superintendent nominates the teach- 
ers, of course, and the board confirms, but the prefer- 
ence of the principal should prevail. Any other 
course is a contravention of the best interests of the 
school. The principal is held responsible for the 
conduct of the school, and authority should always 
be commensurate with responsibility. 

Functions of the principal. — As president of the 
school democracy the principal is clothed with legis- 
lative and judicial powers in addition to his powers 
as an executive. There are rules and regulations 
that can emanate only from him, for these regula- 
tions are the expression of his desires. These rules 
are not ex cathedra utterances, nor yet the immuta- 
ble laws of the Medes and Persians, but rather 
kindly suggestions that look to the comfort and 
well-being of all parties to the implied compact. 

Well he knows that the fewer and simpler the 
rules he promulgates the better for the school, and, 
hence, all the regulations of the school are but 
interpretations of the Golden Eule. In any organism 
the greater the number of rules, the more opportuni- 
ties there are for evasions and violations. His desire, 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 49 

therefore, to simplify the code is both philosophical 
and logical. Besides, he is looking forward to the 
time when all the pnpils will be able to travel a 
straight course without guard or guide, and when 
all school and home regulations will be dispensable. 

In his judicial capacity, the principal should be 
endowed with perspicacity, large wisdom, keen pen- 
etration, ^^ aptitude for vicariousness,'' abundant 
sympathy, and tireless patience. He is sometimes 
called upon to decide between teacher and pupil, and 
tradition admonishes him that it is policy, courtesy, 
and the part of professional wisdom to give a deci- 
sion in favor of the teacher. But here he is a judge 
and must be impartial. He must not be swayed by 
personal considerations. He must give an unbiased 
judgment. As a premise he must admit the possible 
fallibility of the teacher. He must judge fairly and 
righteously. If the teacher is in the wrong he must 
so decide and be able to say *^Be Kent unmannerly 
when Lear is mad. ' ' 

When he is sitting in judgment upon the conduct 
of a recalcitrant pupil he must be able to probe 
through surface indications into the motives that 
may have been a predetermining factor in the con- 
duct under consideration. He must take into account 
both temperment and environment. He must 
change places with the pupil, for the time, in order 
to determine what he, himself, would probably have 
done in exactly similar conditions. The pupil may 



50 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

have trials, temptations, or inherited tendencies that 
the teacher has no knowledge of. These the prin- 
cipal must discover before he can do exact justice. 
He must proceed on the assumption that every pupil 
has in him the elements of good, however much 
obscured, and like Diogenes he must be constantly 
looking for an honest man and not a rascal. His 
chief concern must be to save the pupil to the school 
and to society and not to push him over the cliff. 

The principal's ''aptitude for vica^riousness." — At 
the high-school age many boys, especially, are in a 
condition of physical, mental, and spiritual bewild- 
erment and need friendly counsel. Such counsel the 
principal must be able and willing to give. Better 
a broken rule than a broken boy. The high school 
should not be a recruiting station for prisons. The 
principal must get the boy's point of view in order 
to be of real service as a counselor. This may take 
time and effort, but the boy is worth it. We want 
this boy to be an effective worker in the larger 
democracy and it is well worth while to take time 
to get him harmoniously adjusted in the school 
democracy. If he does not incline toward the regu- 
lar activities of the school, then we must find some- 
thing else for him to do. Our capital letters should 
be devoted to the boy rather than to the system. 

The principal should be able to discover the native 
tendencies of the boy and attach the school activi- 
ties to these tendencies. If the boy gets doing things 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 51 

that lie enjoys doing his circle of interests will 
expand, in time, to the extent of including many of 
the things that we wonld like to have him do. We 
dare not, in justice to the well-being of our democ- 
racy, adopt the Procrustean bed regime in our deal- 
ing with boys. We must utilize all their capacities 
and energies and transmute these into power. Pre- 
conceived theories vanish in the presence of a boy, 
and the situation must be handled with acumen, 
wisdom, and kindly frankness. The principal has 
preceded the boy in traveling the road that is beset 
with obstacles and ought to prove himself a wise 
counselor and a safe guide. 

In exercising his functions as an executive, the 
principal has a task of tremendous import — a task, 
moreover, whose magnitude even the teachers do not 
always fully realize. The teacher sees the school 
from one angle; the principal must know it as a 
whole, with all the parts interacting. An unwise or 
misdirected movement may disturb some feature of 
the organism and lead to grave consequences. If 
he is able to sense the entire situation his major 
influence will be seen in his ability to forestall events 
rather than in his ability to repair damages. It is 
better to settle a matter before it happens than 
afterwards. 

There is small wonder that Nelson's men, at Tra- 
falgar, broke into cheers when he displayed from the 
flagship the signal ''England expects every man to 



52 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

do his duty. ' ' It was not a command, but far better 
than that. Fortunate is that school whose principal 
is a man of such generous spirit that he is able to 
expect much. If his lofty expectations become the 
law of the school, there will be few occasions when 
his authority need be called into requisition. His 
expectations will be but suggestions to the initiative 
of the pupils and they will find joy in charting their 
own voyages. 

The principal's cabinets. — The principal does well 
to take frequent counsel with the teachers. Their 
opportunities for estimating tendencies and mental 
attitudes are superior to his, and their experiences 
and observations may well be made a part of his 
working capital. To him a composite of their knowl- 
edges will serve a useful purpose in directing and 
reinforcing his efforts to have the school mechanism 
run smoothly and effectively. 

Then, again, a second cabinet composed of pupils, 
who are acknowledged leaders, becomes a useful aux- 
iliary to the principal. Having won the confidence 
of these young people, he can with safety consult 
them in regard to school policies and, at the same 
time, reveal to them, incidentally, his expectations. 
The members of this cabinet will be most effective 
agencies in the way of engendering and fostering 
right school sentiment, and so bringing the school 
into harmonious relations with the plans of the 
principal. 



CHAPTER V 
THE TEACHERS 

Teachers differentiated. — Very often has it been 
said, ^^As is the teacher, so is the school'' — which 
may or may not be true. In a single-room school 
this may be trne, but in a high school where there 
are several teachers the statement needs qualifica- 
tion. There may be one teacher whose work and 
influence tend to reduce the average of the school, 
but whose influence is counteracted by the other 
teachers of the corps. Hence, the standard of the 
school is, happily, above the standard of this one 
teacher. 

This teacher may be actuated by mercenary mo- 
tives, solely. If so, she calls her position a job and 
treats it as such. She does hack teaching and has 
the attitude of one who is working by the day. She 
is free to say that her work is out of all proportion 
to her salary and has so frequently wished for her 
ship to come in that quotation marks have become 
superfluous. She does her work grudgingly and is 
greatly relieved when the time for dismissal comes. 
She looks upon teaching as drudgery and makes it 
so. If she should marry, she would do so, probably, 
not to make a home but to get one. 

53 



54 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

Motives of altruism seem never to have entered 
into her life. She holds her place in the '^ bread 
line" with grim pertinacity. Her teaching is of the 
race-track sort, going round and round without 
change or variety. She seems ever to be defending 
herself against the principal, her colleagues, the 
pupils, the work itself, and the world in general. 
She is critical, cynical, and censorious. Her pupils 
are imps, ogres, and dumb-heads, and she tells them 
so. She is in a constant state of querulous ferment 
and imagines herself Atlas carrying the world upon 
her shoulders. She says the principal is unfair 
because he has assigned to her the dullest pupils, 
the most difficult subjects, and the least pleasant 
room. She inveighs against the text-books in use, 
the architecture of the building, the janitor service, 
the school decorations, and the rules of the school. 

She makes frequent demands for apologies from 
her pupils, and ostracism from her room is a daily 
occurrence. She does not stop to inquire what the 
pupil is to do upon leaving her room; to her it is 
sufficient to be rid of him. She prescribes suspension 
and expulsion as the sovereign remedies for all school 
ills, with scant concern as to diagnosis. To her way 
of thinking, punishment, swift and condign, is the 
solution of all difficulties. She seems to regard the 
school as a sort of avenging nemesis, and all pupils 
as its rightful victims. 

The non-professional teacher,— There is another 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 55 

type of teacher who is also a sore trial to the prin- 
cipal and her associates. She is the one who lacks 
professional zeal and spirit. To her a license, or 
certificate, is the end of the quest, the Ultima Thule 
of all endeavor. She looks upon her certificate as 
indisputable proof that she can teach, and concerns 
herself no further. If further proof were needed 
her college diploma would furnish it in superabund- 
ance. She spreads her academic products before her 
pupils, without effort to make them dainty and 
inviting. If the pupils turn away from her offer- 
ings, she accounts it their fault and misfortune and 
acquits herself of further responsibility. When her 
pupils fail she attributes it to their stupidity and 
laziness and never, in the least degree, to her 
teaching of the subject. 

She seems to have a withering contempt for teach- 
ers in the grades, and yet she could go to school to 
many of these with great profit to herself and her 
pupils. If she could only bring herself to sit at the 
feet of many of them and learn how to teach, the 
mortality in her classes would be greatly reduced. 
So strongly intrenched is she in her self-satisfaction 
and self-complacency that she is quite impervious 
to all influences that make for better methods in 
teaching. She deems it her privilege, if not her duty, 
to abide in the camp and not join the marching col- 
umns. The unknown poet must have had her type 
in mind when he wrote as follows : 



56 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

DIVINE DISCONTENT 

Were man contented with Ms lot forever, 
He had not sought strange seas with sails unfurled; 

And the vast wonder of our shores had never 
Dawned on the gaze of an admiring world. 

Prize what is yours, but be not quite contented; 

There is a healthful restlessness of soul. 
By which a mighty purpose is augmented, 

In urging men to reach a higher goal. 

So, when the restless impulse rises, driving 
Your calm content before it, do not grieve; 

It is the upward reaching and the striving 
Of the God in you to achieve, achieve. 

Methods of instruction, plans, devices, socializing 
school work, vitalizing the curriculum, human inter- 
est in teaching — all these are foreign to her think- 
ing, and she contemplates them with supercilious 
disdain. To mention such things in her presence is 
to be answered with a contemptuous smile. Pro- 
fessional books and periodicals make no appeal to 
her. She is superior to them all. Teachers^ meet- 
ings are to her a bore and an impertinence. She 
knows her subject and can split hairs with infinite 
precision; therefore, a meeting of teachers to con- 
sider ways, means, and methods is but a waste of 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 57 

time and energy. If only this teacher could become 
as deeply interested in her pupils as she is in her 
subject the school would be the gainer and she, her- 
self, would have greater joy in her work. State 
Supt. Nathan C. Schaeifer of Pennsylvania, who is 
an eminent scholar and a diligent student of all 
school problems, puts the case well in the following : 
Teacher's interest in pupils.— ''When the wife pre- 
pares oatmeal for the first time in her new home, 
the charm of novelty lends interest to what she is 
doing; but after she has prepared oatmeal 365 times 
in succession, the novelty has departed from the 
process. If by and by a bright, healthy boy comes 
creeping down stairs, the interest in the preparation 
of the oatmeal is renewed, because interest in the 
growing boy makes her take a deep interest in the 
food which he needs to grow into health, strength 
and maturity. The teacher whose chief interest 
centers in her pupils, will never lose her interest in 
the branches which furnish the mental food on which 
those pupils are to grow into strength and maturity. 
To watch the growth and development of an immor- 
tal mind is a source of never-failing interest and 
stimulation. Just as the mother's interest in her 
child causes her to feel an interest in everything 
conducive to the welfare of that child, so the interest 
which the teacher feels in the individual members of 
her class, will cause her to take a never-failing 
interest in all the branches of the curriculum, and 



58 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

in all questions of pedagogy the solution of which 
promises to throw light upon human growth and 
development. In the study of the pupil is to be 
found the tonic which will keep the teacher alive 
and cause her to grow so long as she remains in the 
school-room. ' ' 

' ' This kind of study should not be confounded with 
that other kind of study which turns on ^'a peda- 
gogical phantom" known as the child, and which 
consists in gathering a mass of statistics to be util- 
ized in the preparation of books and review articles 
having as their primary aim the achievement of a 
reputation for original work. That kind of investi- 
gation is valuable in its place, but so long as those 
who gather the statistics are afraid to ask questions 
of their facts, and to put an interpretation upon 
them, very little of real help can be expected from 
that source. The quiet assumption that our present 
methods of teaching need a reconstruction based 
upon child study and the admission that the special- 
ists in this line are not prepared to give us definite 
conclusions, while an entire generation of boys and 
girls is now going through the schools and will have 
passed through the formative period of their lives 
before scientific child-study can hope to furnish defi- 
nite directions, is almost enough to make an earnest 
teacher commit suicide. It is not that kind of child- 
study which is here recommended as a means to keep 
the teachers from dying. The cold winds of the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 59 

frigid zone are not conducive to life. "Warm breezes 
and sunny skies are needed for life and growth. 
The science which deals only with cold figures and 
dry facts, is not the remedy which a teacher needs 
to keep her alive. On the contrary, she needs the 
warm sunshine which comes from the study of happy 
faces and growing minds and expanding souls, as 
these come before her from day to day in her own 
school-room.'' 

Should her gaze, by any chance, ever happen to 
fall upon these w^ords of Dr. Schaeffer, she would be 
amazed that a great scholar subscribes to such senti- 
ments. To her, cold, formal intellectuality is the end 
and aim of all existence and the warm human phase 
of life is a sealed book. She immures herself within 
her academic battlements, and so renders herself 
impregnable. 

Just here is where she becomes the despair of her 
principal. He tries to penetrate her armor in order 
to make her attainments available for the exuberant 
life of the school, but in vain. She is impervious 
to everything that savors of professional advance- 
ment, and declines all efforts toward awakening her 
from her pedagogical somnambulism. Full well the 
principal knows that life begets life and that, if he 
could only, in some way, bring to pass the trans- 
fusion of this teacher's scholarship into the lives 
of the pupils, they would thrill with new life. His 
concept of the school as a democracy is not hers. In 



60 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

lier panoply of mere unvitalized scliolarsliip, she 
assumes the air of aristocracy. The pupils must 
come to her; she will not go to them. Then most 
ardently does the principal wish that she might 
emotionalize the sentiments of Stevenson in his 

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON 

If I have faltered more or less 
In my great task of happiness; 
If I have moved among my race 
And shown no glorious morning face, 
If beams from happy human eyes 
Have moved me not; if morning skies, 
Books, and my food, and summer rain 
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain — 
Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take 
And stab my spirit broad awake. 

These two pictures are not attractive ones, by any 
means ; but this is not a work of fiction. If the high 
school is to realize its great purpose, we must not 
shrink from the truth in delineating its present con- 
ditions. It must be said, however, in all fairness, 
that these two teachers do not typify the great body 
of high-school teachers, nor is the feminine pro- 
noun, as used, to be construed as having special 
significance. With equal fidelity to facts, the mas- 
culine pronoun might have been used. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 61 

The dynamic teacher.— The obverse of these pic- 
tures is far more alluring. To gaze upon this 
obverse, for a little, will prove an experience far 
more pleasurable. There is a vast host of teachers in 
our high schools whose work and influence form a 
halo about the entire high-school situation. They 
have scholarship of high quality and are striving for 
more with fine zeal, but are broad enough, and gen- 
erous enough in their impulses to realize that their 
scholarship must be fused in the spiritual life of 
the pupil in order to accomplish its high mission. 
They know that their scholarship must be trans- 
muted into life for their pupils, in order to be a real 
asset to the school. The school democracy is a grow- 
ing thing, and needs to be supplied with the elements 
that promote growth. Hence it is that these teachers 
are eager to attain a higher degree of scholarship 
that they may have more abundant resources to con- 
tribute to the growth of life in their school. 

Whatever the pessimist and iconiclast may think 
or say, there is such a being as a teacher who is 
devoted to her work. She pours her powers into 
the lives of her pupils gladly and lavishly. She 
cares for all the details of the school routine with 
unabating fidelity, but never loses sight of the great 
object of the school. She looks forward, through 
the years, and sees the boy, whose paper she is mark- 
ing, as a noble upstanding man doing his full part 
for the well-being of society; and the marking of 



62 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

papers lias no stigma of drudgery but becomes an 
ennobling ceremony. 

She sees the girl, whose exercise she is correcting, 
grown into a woman who is a blessing to her home 
and to the community, and whose hands are ever 
bnsy crowning life about her with the flowers of 
good deeds. With such visions to inspire her the 
teacher considers it all well worth while, and con- 
tinues her tasks to the accompaniment of song. She 
regards teaching as an opportunity, and does all her 
work in that spirit. She believes in the boys and 
girls, and, so, they believe in her. Her very presence 
among them inspires them to try to excel themselves. 
They pay her the high tribute of deporting them- 
selves as ladies and gentlemen, till, all in good time, 
this attitude becomes habitual. 

She has pose, poise, and serenity and these attri- 
butes render her an object of admiration to the 
young people; and wdiat they admire they imitate. 
Thus they will carry over into the larger democracy 
the standards that she fitly exemplifies. Her gentle- 
ness and kindness, coupled with her indubitable 
strength of character, give to these young people 
their conception of a lady. Her pupils observe the 
tenets of politeness, almost in spite of themselves, 
because they would regard it as a calamity to fall 
in her esteem. 

Human qualities. — She is, first of all, a wholesome 
human being and then a teacher. Her being gen- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 63 

uinel}? human puts lier in sympathetic accord with 
her pupils and that renders her leadership well-nigh 
automatic. She has a keen and infectious sense of 
humor and this is another bond between teacher and 
pupils. When the teacher laughs with her pupils at 
right situations, they will not laugh without her at 
wrong ones. They very soon sense the distinction 
between genuine humor and buffoonery, and control 
their conduct accordingly. 

This teacher is a vast comfort to the principal. 
He knows that she makes conditions right wherever 
she may be. She tells her plans, if at all, only after 
they have become accomplished facts. He knows, 
too, that her discriminating taste and judgment are 
safe guides for himself and for the entire school. 
She knows all the latest developments in educational 
progress, for she is a careful reader of books and 
periodicals. She has a yearning toward the newer 
and better things, and so avails herself of all the 
aids to progress. She does not confine her interests 
to her own subject nor yet to her own school, but 
makes excursions into other fields that she may 
return laden with their treasures. 

Her spirit is too generous to be restricted to one 
room, or one building, or even to one school system. 
She is a world citizen and lays the whole world under 
tribute. She never is heard to say that she can- 
not find time to read. She knows that that is what 
time is for, in some good measure. Having abound- 



64 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

ing life, she must read. To her, reading and breath- 
ing seem equally natural and necessary. She enjoys 
life because she really lives. When she works she 
works intensely; and, when she plays, she plays 
with fine freedom and joyous abandon. She knows 
what good fun is and enjoys it. Her spirit rarely 
frowns. 

If all high-school teachers were such as this one, 
there would be a larger attendance and fewer deser- 
tions. Such a teacher is a very real boon in that 
her fine spirit permeates the entire school, and gives 
tone to every phase of school work. She is quick 
to catch the viewpoint of pupils, and can adapt her- 
self to situations. She is thoroughly democratic in 
her interests and so makes large contributions to 
the growth and health of the school democracy. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE PUPILS 

Fundamental characteristics.— The pupils are the 
constituent elements of the school and as such must 
be taken into thoughtful consideration. Were we 
constructing a building we could make plans with 
mathematical precision and know that the materials 
would grow, under our hands, into the completed 
structure. The materials of the building are wood, 
brick, iron, lead, tin, slate — all inanimate and, there- 
fore, static. But the elements of the school are vital, 
growing, dynamic — and the difference is of far- 
reaching import. The architect has to do with mate- 
rials that do not change ; the teacher with materials 
that are in a state of continuous change. And this 
changeful nature of the materials of the school is 
very often the cause and occasion of discomposure, 
even though it inspires. 

If the changes that are taking place in the pupils 
were but regular and uniform, the teacher could 
anticipate and provide for them ; but, seeing that 
they are neither regular nor uniform, the teacher 
must be able and ready to adapt himself, without 
premonition, to new and uncharted situations. 

65 



66 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

These changes are physical, mental, and spiritual, 
and their three-fold nature renders them all the more 
complex and baffling. By reason of these changes 
the pupils are ofttimes a perplexing problem to 
themselves as well as to their elders, and, at such 
time, are in far greater need of sympathy than of 
the censure that is meted out to them both by the 
home and by the school. 

Perplexing influences of adolescence. — Notwith- 
standing all that he may have read on the subject 
of adolescence and its accessory changes, the teach- 
er, at times, stands puzzled and helpless in the 
presence of individual exemplifications. He stands 
before mystery and has no key. He stands in a 
pitch-dark room and dares not move through fear 
of accident. He senses trouble but can neither 
locate it nor give it a name. This trouble is subtle 
and elusive but distressingly real. Because of such 
trouble, many a boy has deserted the comforts of 
his home, gone on a long toilsome journey, and 
suffered hunger and privation in many forms. The 
Prodigal Son is not a myth. In such a crisis, some 
have even lost their bearings so utterly as to resort 
to self-destruction. 

Such, then, is the material with which we have 
to do in the high school. We can but face the facts 
— we cannot change them — and would not if we 
could. This vibrant changing life about us is at 
once our hope and our despair. It is our task to 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 67 

take these young people, growing and changing 
day by day, and cause their expanding powers to 
groAv into and reinforce one another and so coalesce 
into a single homogeneous harmonious whole. We 
must accomplish this without undue strain or stress 
that no blight may fall upon their exuberant 
growth. Their growing powers are the strength, 
the glory, and the prophecy of the school and must 
be utilized to the utmost if the school is to realize 
its large possibilities. We are concerned with these 
pupils at an age when they dream dreams and we 
are glad to have it so. It is ours to try, as best 
we can, to see that their dreams come true and to 
forestall nightmares. 

Varying^ aptitudes and interests of pupils. — 
Society is the prototype of the school, and, just as 
society is composed of people of a great variety 
of tastes, standards, ideals, inclinations, aptitudes, 
and interests, so, also, is the school. No two pupils 
are cast in the same mold. From all this diversity 
we are to create unity. We are to find enough com- 
mon interests to bind these pupils together into a 
compact working, growing organism. We want 
each pupil to be merged into the school without 
losing his individuality, just as his father con- 
tributes to the well-being of the larger democracy 
and emphasizes himself as an individual by so 
doing. If we succeed in making the work of the 
high school the dominant interest of all pupils, we 



68 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

shall have found the basis upon which they can 
work and live together during the high-school 
period. But, if there is a pupil whose dominant 
interest lies outside the school, that pupil becomes 
an element of inharmony in the school, and the 
school, itself, will not be at its best until we find 
inside the school some interest for this pupil that 
will take precedence over all others. 

These pupils have many interests that separate 
them, as a matter of course, but they have many, 
also, that tend to unite them; and these latter are 
the ones that become the working capital of the 
school — the ones that must be emphasized and 
strengthened to the greatest possible degree. If 
they are to live together in peace and prosperity 
during four years or more, they must pull together 
and not apart. In one high school there are twenty- 
two nationalities represented and the task of uni- 
fying these elements seems herculean, but it has 
been done, and this high school is noted for the 
spirit of concord and zealous work that obtains. 
The principal and teachers have found or generated 
enough common interests to bind the pupils together, 
and the school has the distinction of being 
well-conditioned. In this school are pupils whq 
represent affluence, poverty, capital, labor, for- 
eign traditions, arts, professions, and a host of 
other social and racial conditions. Some of the 
parents know no English save what they have 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 69 

learned from their children. Some of them have no 
concept of a high school excepting the one which 
their children attend. Some are making a heroic 
struggle with grinding poverty that their children 
may avail themselves of the privileges of the 
school. Many of them believe in the school with a 
blind bnt eager faith, understanding little or noth- 
ing of what it is trying to do or why it is doing it. 
Their sublime faith sees in the school the subtle 
alchemy that is to transmute their children into 
American citizens. 

Complex nature of materiaL — The high school, 
then, has to do with this sort of material — hetero- 
geneous, rudimentary, potential, elemental, and 
volatile. To contemplate this material with com- 
placency argues a want of careful reflection. The 
teacher may well stand appalled before these boys 
and girls coming into the high school from all 
ranks and conditions of society. He may not see 
in any one of these a future Edison or a Clara 
Barton but he knows that out of such material as 
this have come the men and women who were and 
are the pioneers of civilization. 

The teacher is mystified because of his lack of 
knowledge of these young people, the very knowl- 
edge that is a prerequisite for intelligent procedure 
in their behalf. He knows not their antecedents, 
their environments, their life histories, their capa- 
bilities nor their real needs. He can only gen- 



70 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

eralize, and generalization in such a case is full 
of hazard. 

Unless we know accurately the nature of the 
ingredients in the case of material substance we 
cannot, with any assurance, predicate the compound. 
Much less accurately can we do so in the case of 
living, growing, volatile elements. If we knew the 
pupils far better than we do, the high school would 
still be but an experimental laboratory; as condi- 
tions are, the experimental character of high-school 
work is its chief weakness. The teacher's work is 
a groping in the dark. At the close of the high- 
school period, very often, we have but reached the 
border-land of the knowledge that would have 
stood us in good stead at the very outset. If we 
could only have known in prospect what we have 
come to see in retrospect, far fewer mistakes would 
have been made and our work, as a whole, would 
redound far more to our credit. 

If we could know, when the pujjils appear before 
us for the beginning of their work in the high 
school, with some degree of definiteness, what are 
their inherited or acquired dispositions ; their physi- 
cal and mental disabilities, if any; their chief 
interests in life ; their experiences in school and out ; 
and their attitude toward people and conditions 
in general, we should have a vantage-point from 
which to take the initial step in the task before us. 
Lacking this knowledge in its manifold ramifica- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 71 

tions, we set out on a trip across the ocean without 
the implements or the knowledge of the navigator. 

Necessity of knowing pupils in advance.— In the 
good time to come w^e shall have our tests and 
inspections in the ante-room of the high school rather 
than in the auditorium. We shall consider our- 
selves incompetent to act as guides to the pupils 
through the high school unless we have a fairly 
adequate knowledge of charts that show who and 
what they are. These charts will show the life 
history of the child prior to his appearance at the 
high school; they will show his innate tendencies 
so far as these have revealed themselves to parents, 
previous teachers, and acquaintances; they will 
disclose his aptitudes, physical, mental, and spirit- 
ual; they will make known to us whether he is 
more susceptible to sensory or motor impulses; they 
will explain the nature of his reaction to many and 
varied stimuli; they will prophesy his responses to 
many objective situations; in short, they will reveal 
to us the pupil as he is when standing at the 
threshold of the high school. 

Possessed of such knowledge the teacher need 
not pursue such a zigzag or tortuous course as is 
all too prevalent in present conditions. He will 
know far better what to do both for the pupil and 
with him. He will gain a long step at the start by 
his recognition of the pupil as an individual, as a 
person, and not a mere name, or number. Already 



72 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

the boy is concious of the awakening of his man- 
hood and is glad to have worthy recognition. He 
responds with alacrity to such recognition and 
thenceforward is stanch in his fealty to the teacher. 
Such knowledge as has been outlined will be the 
lode-star of the principal, guiding him through the 
mazes of class grouping, selecting courses and 
studies, assigning teachers, and arranging all the 
other details of the school regime. 

Characteristics of the adolescent. — In all the 
diversity of high school pupils we may discover 
many traits of character that are peculiar to the 
age of adolescence. In the first place, they are 
easily and interminably bored, and will soon allow 
their spirits to lapse into a state of somnolence if 
the teacher drones over weary platitudes. Being 
creatures of change, they demand variety, fresh- 
ness, vigor, push, verve, go. They do not take 
kindly to ''news from the graveyard." To them 
each day is a new day, and yesterday is hoary 
with age. Their very natures cry aloud for a 
complete change in the bill of fare, and turn away 
from warmed-over food. The teacher may apply 
epithets to them, but no matter; they cannot 
reconstruct their nature at the behest of the teacher. 
They are so honest with themselves that, if they 
feel bored, they look bored, even braving the 
teacher's frowns. 

Just as they are inexpressibly bored with plati- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 73 

tudes, so tliey resent homilies. Preachments seem 
an offense against their ebullient nature. They 
catch the point of the story or the lesson, and are 
then eager for something else, and do not care to 
have the teacher waste their time in moralizing. 
Besides, they feel that the teacher is discrediting 
their intelligence, and, on this point, they are well- 
nigh morbidly sensitive. They may know their 
limitations, but are averse to having them made 
evident to others, even by implication. The 
resourceful teacher is their favorite, the teacher 
whose illustrations are pat, kaleidoscopic, sparkling 
with dew-drops, and drawn from the big world and 
not from the attic. 

Again, they are intolerant of cant, hypocrisy, 
affectation, and pose and are quick to discover 
these traits in the teacher. Indeed, they discover 
the teacher long before she discovers them. She 
is under critical examination all the while, for, 
prompted by self-interest, they are seeking the 
weak places in her armor, and their combined 
efforts soon find them. During this quest, they are 
hiding from the teacher. They look upon her as 
an antagonist whose wiles must be thwarted, and 
whose prowess must be made to yield, until she 
reveals herself as their friend. Then they come 
forth from their hiding-places, and subscribe to 
the covenant of peace. But there is no peace pact 
so long as they suspect that the teacher is simu- 



74 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

lating sincerity. Her conduct must give forth the 
note of genuineness and sincerity at every test. 
They may dissemble, but she must not. Once the 
relations of comity and amity are established, they 
become tractable, docile, and delightfully amenable 
to reason. 

Again, these pupils illustrate in their habits that 
a straight line is the shortest distance between two 
points, and instinctively travel on this line. Con- 
ventions have no message for them as yet, and they 
move straight ahead to their goal. People call 
them heedless, selfish, rude, impolite, but they are 
not consciously so. They are but moving in obedi- 
ence to driving forces within them, and the conven- 
tions of society give way before their adolescent 
impact. This trait renders them restive in the 
presence of any sort of circumlocution. Ponderous 
formality irks them, and the teacher who trans- 
gresses in this respect falls in their esteem. 
They like the teacher who comes to the point at 
once, with no meandering. If only the teachers 
will serve an abundance of white meat they will 
freely forgive the garnishing. 

They are ardent advocates of fair play and will 
brook no transgressions. Their own differences 
evaporate in the presence of any act of pupil or 
teacher that smacks of unfairness and they unite 
firmly and on the instant in righteous opposition. 
The teacher must not toady to the rich man's son. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 75 

nor must she ever make any member of the school 
conscious of any physical or mental infirmity. The 
boy or the dog that has met with misfortune 
becomes the special care of these pupils, and their 
duty, in such a case, is so clearly defined that there 
is but one course of conduct open to them. They 
know they are right, and they go ahead. They 
demand fair play for the teacher as well as for one 
another, provided she plays fair. The teacher may 
never know how often trouble has been averted by 
the timely intervention of pupils. They have a code 
that interdicts tale-bearing and the teacher never 
learns from them, unless from a chance sycophant, 
that she passed a crisis all unaware. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE STUDIES 

A minimum of formalism. — The caption of this 
chapter hints at a modest departure from the for- 
malism of the commonly accepted nomenclature, 
but is not to be interpreted as a protest against 
the terms in common use. This caption has been 
chosen as a convenient nucleus around which to 
center the discussions which the chapter embodies. 

All school procedure necessitates organization 
and this, in turn, imposes a certain amount of 
formalism but the formalism, itself, is a convenient, 
or necessary means, and not an end. Indeed, the 
less obvious the machinery of the school, the better 
it is for all concerned. The machinery is there, to 
be sure, but only as a subsidiary agency. Sim- 
plicity in any organism is ever to be esteemed a 
virtue. Our pedagogical studies have developed 
many new terms that are highly useful because 
truly significant. But many, who use these terms, 
have invested them with a degree of fixedness that 
is beyond the original intention of their authors. 

Flexibility of standards. — In practice, some 
teachers seem to assume that standards are fixed 

76 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 77 

entities, witliout resiliency, and incapable of cliange. 
Hence, there has developed a feeling for immuta- 
bility, Jor fixedness in the entire school regime. 
We want courses of study, and school procedure 
in general to ' ' stay put. ' ' We read the latest book 
on pedagogy, glean from it a few new terms that 
seem the final words on the subject, conclude that, 
at last, the entire school order has been standard- 
ized and that we may now proceed on our com- 
placent way without let or hindrance. But the 
next book renders obsolete some of our cherished 
methods, and disturbs both our fixed order and 
our equipoise. We resent these invasions into the 
realms of our serenity as iconoclastic, and long 
for the time when the theorists and their books 
will permit us to pursue, in peace, our standard- 
ized ways. We argue that Agassiz was a great 
teacher without all these modern refinements of 
pedagogy, forgetful of the fact that there was but 
one Agassiz. 

Because, then, the course of study or curriculum 
has been so long associated with standardization 
in the school consciousness, we shall escape, per- 
haps, in a measure, the notion of fixedness if we 
concentrate our attention upon the studies them- 
selves rather than upon them in combination as an 
organized whole. In this way, we shall gain in the 
concept of flexibility, and such a gain is of funda- 
mental importance. 



78 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

The high school, itself, is in a constant state of 
flux, never the same two days in succession if it 
is the growing organism that we conceive it to be. 
This must be true, if it is an integral part of 
society, exercising the functions of the democracy 
of which it is a part. Unless the high school is 
growing it will not expand and flow out into the 
larger democracy. This growth depends, to an 
appreciable degree, upon the studies, their charac- 
ter, and their content as well as upon the manner 
in which they are administered. 

The needs of society in relation to studies. — 
Every teacher is an ardent advocate of his specialty. 
The teacher of history would have more history, 
and the teacher of science, more science. So that 
the distribution of studies needs a more logical 
basis than the inclinations of the teachers. Studies 
are introduced not to please or benefit the teachers, 
but to benefit the pupils; and not to benefit the 
pupils, only, but to benefit the school as a working 
democracy; and not even this alone, but to benefit 
the larger democracy. 

To determine, therefore, what studies should be 
pursued in the school, and to what extent each 
should be pursued, the logical starting-point would 
seem to be society, itself. In making this determi- 
nation we are to be guided not by the wants of 
society but by its needs. To make a combination 
of studies for the high school, with the needs of 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 79 

society as our point of departure, is no slight task. 
He who essays this task shoukl know the school, to 
be sure, but very much more. He must know the 
present and the probable future needs of society. 
He must sense the trend of civilization. No mere 
academician can hope to succeed. Such a task 
demands wisdom as well as knowledge. It demands 
sight, foresight, and insight. Prescience is indis- 
pensable but insufficient. 

If one could be found before whom the future 
would unroll and reveal its secrets, such an one 
might still stand helpless before this task. He 
would need to know how to adapt studies to pupils 
and pupils to studies in order to make wise and 
adequate provisions for the demands of the future. 
In addition to the needs of society he must know 
the value of the study in its relation to these needs; 
he must know the aptitudes and the full possible 
potency of the pupil in his relation to the study 
and, through this study, to the needs of society; 
he must know the methods by which pupil and 
study may combine most efficiently in the interests 
of society; and, after he has made all these dis- 
coveries, he must still further ~ know what, in 
chemistry, we call the valence. 

He may find a boy to whom the study of mathe- 
matics is altogether congenial and feel comfort in 
this discovery. But, later on, he may come to know 
that in making this combination of boy and mathe- 



80 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

matics he did not utilize the capabilities of the boy 
to the fullest extent, and has, thereby, done vio- 
lence to the highest interests of the boy and, also, 
of society. He proved himself short-sighted in 
estimating the valence. 

The study a means to an end.— In all truth it 
may be said that no study is valuable per se. It is 
valuable only in combination with a pupil and for 
a worthy end. The study is merely schematic. 
Primarily, we are concerned in fostering the well- 
being of society by developing, to the largest pos- 
sible degree, its strength and graces. Nor may we, 
with impunity, ever lose sight of this primary pur- 
pose in making combinations of pupils and studies. 
Society has a right to the extreme maximum of 
the boy ^s powers, and, also, a right to the maximum 
advantage to be derived from every study in com- 
bination with the boy. If the study of mathe- 
matics is a prerequisite to efficiency in engineering, 
then we must select the boy who can best make 
mathematics function in effective engineering. 
Upon efficiency in engineering depends the conser- 
vation of human life, and society has full warrant 
for demanding of the school such a combination 
of pupil and study as will finally result in the 
requisite efficiency. 

The high school, of course, is not charged with 
the responsibility of producing skilled engineers,, 
blacksmiths, carpenters, physicians, milliners, or 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 81 

undertakers. Scanning a city directory and noting 
the great number of vocations and professions, 
will prove, at once, the impossibility of doing this. 
On this very point, there are many who are in need 
of disillusionment. They seem to regard a voca- 
tional study as an apprenticeship. The vocational 
study may generate and strengthen tendencies, but 
it is not intended, nor does it profess, to do what 
an apprenticeship is designed to accomplish. 

Mathematics and engineering are closely and 
inevitably associated in the social consciousness; 
and, hence, mathematics is regarded an indispens- 
able study in the high school. And, so it is. "We 
must have engineers, and, therefore, mathematics. 
We reason accurately up to a certain point and 
then we go astray. Because society will need engi- 
neers in the future, it does not follow that society 
will be composed entirely of engineers. Therefore, 
only so many and such pupils should study mathe- 
matics as will render this science most advanta- 
geous to society. It is quite as pertinent to inquire 
whether the pupil will be good for the study as to 
inquire whether the study will be good for the 
pupil. Indeed, we must go still further and inquire 
whether the two together will be good for the school, 
and, therefore, for society. 

Pupil and study in combination. — Just here the 
question will arise whether the inclination of the 
pupil will be the final arbiter in determining his 



82 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

study. Certainly not. Such a mode of procedure 
would be subversive of the efficacy of the plan. 
There must be found some one who is wise enough 
to estimate the possibilities of the pupil in connec- 
tion with the study, and wise enough, also, to lead 
the pupil into his way of thinking; and, then, with 
skill enough to bring study and pupil to their 
highest fruition through their action and reaction 
upon each other. 

Many a boy quits school as a protest against the 
inability of the teacher to effect a right and har- 
monious combination of pupil and study. Some- 
times a boy is expelled as incorrigible, when the 
real reason is that the teacher does not know what 
else to do. So, the boy is made the scapegoat for 
the ignorance of the teacher; and both the boy and 
society sustain an irreparable loss. The objection 
is raised that society cannot aiford the expense of 
providing special work for this one boy. Far 
better a class of one than a derelict. Helen Kellar 
was the only member of her class, and society 
approved. 

Human nature is not stereotyped and no teacher 
can afford to ignore this fact in the assignment of 
studies to pupils. We may standardize inanimate 
things, but not human beings. Standardization in 
respect of human beings means paralysis. Hence, 
in our school democracy, we must find worthy 
tasks for all the pupils to the end that every pupil 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 83 

and tlie school as a whole shall grow symmetrically 
and continuously. 

Let it be reiterated, then, that the study has no 
virtue in and of itself, and only acquires value in 
combination with a pupil. The automobile is an 
inert thing without gasoline, and gasoline, apart 
from the automobile, is equally lifeless. The gaso- 
line requires the machine to give it vitality, and the 
machine requires the gasoline to give it potency. 
The combination of the two makes for the advant- 
age of society. Again, the patient in the sick- 
room can make no contribution to the demands 
of society. The drug in the shop is merely a sub- 
stance. But when patient and drug act and react 
upon each other, the result is restoration to health 
and an additional worker in society. The physician 
must know^ both the patient and the drug or his 
prescription may work harm instead of good. 

Home economics may be used as a further illus- 
tration in reinforcing the contention that every 
study should be able to justify its presence in the 
school, both in its relation to the pupil and its 
relation to the community. Its advocates rightly 
claim that this study gives the girls skill in the 
domestic arts. Bjit we must look beyond the school 
before we can arrive at a right conclusion in the 
matter. If the skill that these girls acquire becomes 
an asset to society, then we are fully justified 
in paying taxes for the teaching of this study. 



84 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

It must be evident that one of the great benefits 
accruing to society through the teaching of home 
economics is the dignity that it gives to honest 
work; and when this notion becomes ingrained in 
the social consciousness society will have taken a 
step forward toward emancipation from snobbery 
and class distinctions. 

The honest worker, in whatever field of activity, 
is a contributor, in some degree, to the well-being 
of society and as such is worthy the respect of all 
other workers. If society decrees that all honest 
work is ennobling, then the worker will find a part 
of his reward in the contemplation of this fact, and 
he will experience an impulse, thereby, toward 
larger and better achievements. So we are led to 
place the stamp of approval upon the study of 
home economics for what it does for the girls and 
also for what it does, through them, for society. 

"When these girls become home-makers they will 
carry the school influences directly into their homes. 
They will know how to administer the affairs of 
those homes economically and artistically because 
of their experience in the school. Nor will there 
be any jar in the transition, for they will find 
society to be merely a larger edition of the school, 
and their interests and experiences will continue 
to be the same in character. The activities of the 
school will merge inevitably and naturally into the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 85 

activities of society; and society will afford the reflex 
proof that school is real life. 

Cultural and practical studies. — In like manner, 
all the other studies may be made to pass in review 
and each one be made to show its credentials. 
There is certain to ensue the perennial controversy 
between cultural and practical studies, and here, 
again, society must become the court of final 
appeal. If society needs the influence of cultural 
studies, then there is no other course open to the 
school. If society needs the influences that are 
fostered by the study of art, then the path is plain 
before the school. In the discussions that have been 
indulged in for years in the camps of the cultural 
and the vocational studies there has come the 
assumption that there is a line of demarcation 
between the two, when in very fact, no such line 
exists. Elihu Burritt may be cited in proof of 
this. There is no incompatibility between the study 
of agriculture and the study of Greek. A man need 
be no less efficient as a farmer because he prefers 
to spend the evening reading ^^ Hamlet '' rather than 
to pore over the colored supplement. 

Indeed, the very boy whom we select for the 
study of agriculture may be the one whom we shall 
find best adapted to our purpose in utilizing the 
study of Latin. There can be no effective dissent 
from the proposition that we must conserve scholar- 



86 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

ship in its fullest implication. In our practice, 
however, we have proceeded somewhat blindly and 
vaguely in our selection of agents for this impor- 
tant work. The election of studies in the high 
school has been largely fortuitous, when it should' 
have had the most concentrated combined thought 
of the school and society. With the very acme of 
sang-froid we have stood aside while the pupils 
supplied themselves with misfit studies, and then 
weakly absolved ourselves from responsibility. 

There are pupils who revel in and adore the 
study of Latin and such as these, and only such, 
should be chosen to give to this study its true place 
and power in the scheme of education for the well- 
being of society. The misfits discredit the study, 
deflect and restrict their own powers, and lessen 
the possibilities of the school. Had the ounce of 
prevention been applied at the beginning, the pound 
of cure would not have been so much in evidence 
later on. 

Rights of pupils in relation to studies. — Still, 
again, seeing that the constitution of the United 
States guarantees to every citizen ^'life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness," the high school can 
do no less. These pupils are citizens of our school 
democracy and of the larger democracy, and, so, 
are entitled to all the rights and privileges that 
belong to citizenship. Many flowers of rhetoric 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 87 

have been wasted upon the misconception tliat the 
higli school and society are well-nigh antipodal. 
Because pupils spend four years of their citizen- 
ship in the school, they do not, on this account, 
abrogate their rights as citizens of the state. Some 
men spend four years in a foreign country without 
losing their rights as citizens. 

To these young people in the high school, then, 
must be accorded all the rights which the constitu- 
tion guarantees to them. The high-school period 
is a segment of their natural life and they are 
entitled, during this period, to such consideration 
as will make for the nearest possible approxima- 
tion to complete living. One philosopher tells us 
that it is immoral for anyone to do less than his 
best. This being true, it behooves the school to 
make such wise adjustment of pupil and study as 
will be most conducive to his best. No pupil 
shrinks from hard work if only the work is con- 
genial. Indeed, hard work at congenial tasks is a 
joy to him and in such work he has both liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness. We need not here 
resort to the doctrine of hedonism. Experience 
affords abundant confirmation of the truth of this 
contention. Given a congenial bit of work, the 
more difficult it is the greater will be the pupil's 
pleasure when success crowns his efforts. 

This fact, alone, imposes great responsibility 



88 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

upon the school in the matter of right adjustment 
of pupil to study; nor can the school shift or shirk 
this responsibility. Unless there is harmonious 
articulation, the pupil, the study, the school, and 
society will all suffer loss. 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE TEACHING 

The teaching process.— The teaching is the 
process and the means, in part, by which is brought 
to pass the amalgamation of the two democracies, 
society and the school, to the advantage of both; 
the studies are the veins and arteries through 
which there may be a healthful circulation of life 
between the two democracies ; and the teacher is the 
agent of society who is placed in the school to see 
to it that the best interests of society are fully and 
efficiently conserved. 

We need not concern ourselves, at present, with 
the subject of technique in teaching, but rather 
with the primary purposes and objects connected 
with the process. When we have arrived at a 
judgment as to why there should be teaching at all, 
we shall be in position to determine, in a more 
satisfactory way, how it should be done. If we 
can only gain the conception that the teacher is 
an agent of society, we shall be better able to test 
the character and efficiency of her work from the 
viewpoint of the implied provisions of the contract 
under which she is working. If we can only win 

89 



90 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

through to the notion that society bears the 
expense of the school and is, therefore, entitled to a 
voice in the work of outlining its policies, we shall 
be on safe ground both as to civic economy and 
sound pedagogy. Long has the school been the 
sole arbiter of its own policies, and society has 
been tolerant even if sometimes impatient. 

The study and the social process. — Chemistry is 
not, necessarily, a school study, however long we 
may have so regarded it. Chemistry is a phase or 
part of the social process, and would continue to be 
such were it banished from the high school, or 
were the high school, itself, eliminated. Society 
needs chemistry and chemists, and, therefore, has 
them. But it could have both in the absence of 
the high school. We admit the fact in a mild way 
and then proceed in our thinking that without the 
high school and the college there would be no study 
of chemistry. There is need for emphasis just 
here. Society does not need chemistry because it 
is a high-school study; on the contrary, chemistry 
is a high-school study because society needs it. 
The distinction is important because fundamental. 

Thousands of people are concerned with chem- 
istry in its many applications to the arts, to other 
sciences, to the trades, and, hence, to commerce. 
In tracing its applications we run the gamut from 
the modest kitchen to the pretentious manufactory. 
Our food, our clothing, and life itself all require the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 91 

supervising influence of chemistry. It comes into 
the high school, therefore, at the behest of society's 
needs, and because it is a phase of the social 
process. Because of this fact, the teaching of 
chemistry presupposes a knowledge, on the part 
of the teacher, of the uses of chemistry in its mani- 
fold bearings upon civilization. Hence, the teacher 
of chemistry must be wide-eyed, and liberal in his 
responses to all situations involving the subject. 
He must cause pupils to see chemistry in its rela- 
tion to health, to the conservation of life, and to 
the social process in general. Otherwise, he fails to 
acquit himself well as an agent of society. 

But, it may be argued, the brewing of beer is a 
part of the social process. So it is; but it does 
not follow that it should, on that account, be 
incorporated as a part of the school regime. 

The needs of society a determining factor. — In 
determining what studies should engage the atten- 
tion of high-school pupils, a close distinction must 
be made between the wants and the needs of society. 
The school must discriminate between necessi- 
ties and luxuries. Chemistry is a necessity and, 
as such, is freely admitted to the school. Here, 
again, we shall be confronted by the arguments of 
the strictly utilitarians who profess to believe that 
the cultural studies make for mere luxuries. The 
answer to this may be compressed into the mere 
statement that culture is a necessity to all who 



92 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

distinguisli real life from mere existence. Besides, 
it is the province of the high school to exercise 
pupils in the basic principles of subjects and not 
in their ramifications. We teach chemistry, but not 
its applications in the study of medicine. 

English as an illustration. — English may be cited 
as an answer to the call of society, and, if we hold 
in mind the needs of society, we shall know what 
to teach and, measureably, how to proceed in the 
teaching. In order that people may live and work 
together harmoniously in society they must have 
a medium of communication. This statement seems 
altogether trite, but, with all its triteness, it has 
in it the quintessence of a truth that seems not to 
have adequate recognition in much of our school 
practice. Society has a right to hale the school 
to the bar of judgment if, after studying English 
for twelve years, graduates of the high school are 
still unable to use their mother-tongue accurately, 
even if not elegantly. Try, as we may, to shift 
the responsibility to the home, or to the street, we 
stand convicted before the facts, if our graduates 
cannot write a letter that is correct in form, and 
cannot acquit themselves creditably in conversa- 
tion according to the tenets of correct and agree- 
able speech. 

Not all the refinements of rhetoric, that we may 
cite in defense, will avail us if our pupils cannot 
do these simple and fundamental things, and society 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 93 

will not hold our teaching blameless. The plain 
fact is that we have not met society's needs in this 
respect and that is the final test of teaching. The 
pupil may bear home in triumph a report that 
teems with high grades in composition, rhetoric, 
or literature, but, if he fails in the simple tests of 
language that the home applies, the school must 
bear the odium of failure. A quotation from 
^'Macbeth" will not condone a disagreement 
between subject and verb. To society a solecism 
is a solecism, and it does not go back of the returns. 
It estimates the facts at their face value, and has 
neither time nor inclination to ferret out the 
validity of excuses or apologies. If we have too 
much or not enough language-study, too much or 
not enough formal grammar, not the right kind 
of books, or not the right kind of teaching, then 
society has the right to insist that we correct our 
mistakes, and that without delay. We are work- 
ing for society, and . must yield obedience to its 
demands. 

Incidentally, it may be said, that much of the 
teaching of English in the high school goes wide of 
the mark. Teachers too often over-estimate the 
linguistic attainments of the pupils, and become so 
engrossed with assignments and requirements that 
they deviate, sometimes widely, from the plain 
path of the pupils' real needs. Teachers seem to 
proceed upon the assumption that their pupils will 



94 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

absorb a knowledge of correct forms as they labor 
through text and notes, but results would seem to 
indicate that their powers of absorption are more 
or less deficient. Somehow pupils have acquired 
the notion that school English is for exhibition 
purposes and is not intended for daily use. 

The school consciousness and the social con- 
sciousness of pupils are too often distinct, whereas 
they should be identical; and English is so irrevo- 
cably associated in their school consciousness with 
grades, tests, examinations, promotion, and passing 
that it no longer holds a place in their social con- 
sciousness. If English could only be thoroughly 
enmeshed in their nervous system, it would take 
its rightful place as one of the habitual things of 
daily life. Too often, however, it seems to them 
to belong with those medicaments that are not to 
be taken inwardly, but to be rubbed on. The 
teacher excuses himself by citing the requirements 
in the course of study, and can make out a fairly 
good case on this score; but the time will come, 
let us hope, when the course of study will be 
dictated by the needs of society and not by caprice 
or tradition. The course of study should be made 
for the pupil, and not the reverse. 

Social studies. — Through the distinctive social 
studies we may touch the nerve centers of the com- 
munity if' the matter is managed well. Our trouble 
has been and is that history and civics are so inti- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 95 

mately associated with text-books in the conscious- 
ness of pupils, that it is difficult to reconstruct 
their notions. Some responsibility for this fallacy 
must be assumed by the teachers of these studies. 
Text-books are a convenience but not a necessity 
in the teaching of history. But pupils have come to 
feel, if not think, that text-books are the source of 
history, and that there could have been no history 
before text-books were made and could be none 
were the text-books ostracised. Hence the teach- 
ing of history often degenerates into a mere exer- 
cise of memory and so fails of its real purpose. 

With this sort of teaching prevailing, the study 
of history and civics does not grip the interest of 
the pupils, for the reason that these studies seem 
too remote from their daily experiences. Mere 
memory work does not cause them to thrill, and it 
becomes all one to them whether the Pantheon 
was a great building, or a new kind of breakfast- 
food. They accept all statements with the utmost 
complacency. If their life experiences were but 
called into play in interpreting the events that are 
narrated; if they could be made to understand that 
the events all about them are an integral part of 
history; if they could realize that the events that 
are recorded in the morning paper are historical; 
and if they could but emotionalize the truth that 
they themselves are a part of the current of history, 
the flow of life between the school and society 



96 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

would be greatly accelerated, and the teaching of 
history would show its obedience to the behests of 
the larger democracy. 

In our teaching of civics we have caused the 
study to have a faraway aspect to our pupils as 
if it were wholly concerned with places and people 
outside the pale of their experiences. It is the high 
privilege of the teacher to make this study har- 
monize and synchronize with their daily experience 
and so render it a vital element in the social process. 
In this connection it is pertinent to quote from an 
article in The History Teacher's Magazine by Mr. 
Arthur William Dunn, as follows: 

Without text-book assignment, the children dis- 
cuss informally what good health means to each 
one, and give examples from their own experience 
of consequences of sickness; they discuss particular 
dangers to their own health, such as impure food, 
impure air, lack of exercise; they explain how they 
individually care for their own health, or how at 
times they are careless of it; they point out the 
increased dangers to health where many people are 
gathered together, and give examples of the depend- 
ence of each on others for health protection, as in 
the case of epidemics; they derive from this the 
need for co-operation in the interest of health; they 
illustrate such co-operation in the home and in the 
school, and indicate rules that necessarily exist in 
home and school for health protection; they give 
examples of neighborhood co-operation for health 
protection, such as combined efforts for clean yards, 
alleys and streets; they report on actual dangers 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 97 

to health with which they are confronted in their 
own city, and make the logical deductions regard- 
ing the necessity of co-operation on the part of the 
entire city to avoid these dangers. This raises the 
question as to whether the city does so co-operate, 
and leads to a. thorough discussion of how the 
city government provides the means for such co- 
operation. They enter into detail in regard to how 
the department of health insures pure water for 
the use of each of their families; provides for the 
removal of garbage from their back doors, and 
prevents the spread of contagious diseases. This 
brings into view the various inspectors and health 
officers, and leads to further comment on their activ- 
ities and a consideration of how they are supervised 
by a board of health, and of the relation of the 
latter to the people. In a discussion of the various 
duties of the board of health, one boy asserts that 
''it passes pure food laws." Another at once 
objects, ''No, the national government makes the 
pure food laws. ' ' At once the horizon is broadened, 
the question why the national government acts in 
this particular case is discussed, and the relation 
of the great packing houses to the common health 
interests of the entire nation is disclosed. Other 
activities of the national government for health 
protection are referred to, and also the sphere of 
the state government in the same relation to the 
individual. 



The social process is 1-argely constructive and, 
hence, the modes of thought that emanate from this 
process are of the same nature. Our pupils come 
to us, therefore, imbued with constructive tenden- 
cies as well as constructive modes of thinking, and 



98 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

the teaching that will most readily attach itself 
to these tendencies and modes is the constructive, 
the synthetic as distinguished from the analytic. 
The latter is in quite general use in many of the 
high-school studies, notwithstanding the fact that 
the inherent tendencies of youth yearn toward the 
synthetic. We have divisions, and sub-divisions; 
we have heads and sub-heads; we have our firstly, 
secondly, thirdly until our pupils are lost in a maze 
of bewildering refinements and subtleties. The boy 
wants to be making things, but we force him into 
the task of unmaking things ; he wants to be putting 
things together, but we compel him to busy himself 
in taking things apart; he wants to see a completed 
product, but we insist that he give his attention 
to dispersed parts. We thus run counter to his 
native tendencies, and so dull his interest. 

Analytic compared with synthetic teaching. — The 
analytic cannot, of course, be wholly eliminated, 
but it can, in very many studies, be subordinated 
to the synthetic. The constructive side of commer- 
cial studies renders them attractive, leaving out of 
account their mercenary appeal. Industrial studies 
are popular because they are synthetic. The study 
of Latin has become so largely analytic that pupils 
are drifting toward the studies that make a stronger 
appeal to their native tendencies. Synthetic work 
is commonly accounted more practical simply 
because it attaches itself readily to the tendencies 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 99 

wliicli the social process fosters. In all fairness it 
must be said in this connection, that there are many 
teachers who have the gift of making the stncly 
of Latin of dynamic interest because they know 
hoAV to approach the subject on the side of 
synthesis. 

What has been said in this chapter has served 
its full purpose if it has succeeded in reinforcing 
the contention that only such teaching will meet 
the demands of the larger democracy, as runs par- 
allel to the social process and attaches itself and 
the studies with which it has to do in a vital way 
to the needs of society. Society is the arbiter and 
the goal of all studies and all teaching. 



CHAPTER IX 
DISCIPLINE 

Some misconceptions. — In the school conscious- 
ness of some teachers discipline is a sort of bogey 
or bng-bear and looms large as a prerequisite to 
successful teaching. Many superintendents give it 
first place among the qualifications of the teacher 
and seem to conceive of discipline as the ability to 
forestall riots, strikes, destruction of property, and 
vandalism in general. This conception trenches 
upon the domain of the policeman and arrogates to 
itself his functions. In this notion of discipline, 
it merely concerns itself with the negative phase 
of the high-school problem, and is quite content if 
it secures what is known as good order. Order is 
a necessary condition in the successful school, of 
course, but not the order of a gallery of statues 
or a cemetery. 

There is another conception of discipline which 
is far better, broader, more logical, and more in 
harmony with the notion that the school is a 
democracy. This conception is that discipline is 
a constructive process, acting in a positive way to 
promote the well-being of the school, by bringing 
every pupil into harmony with the plan upon 

100 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 101 

which the school is organized and administered. 
In this conception there is a large element of ideal- 
ism, but idealism is one of the inherent character- 
istics of a successful school. In such a conception 
of discipline we may have repression, or even sever- 
ity, but these are temporal, and incidental to the 
constructive purpose. There may be pain in sur- 
gery, but the great purpose is to promote life and 
health, and the pain is but an unavoidable incident. 
The surgeon regrets the pain, but is not deterred 
by it in carrying out his large purpose. 

Altruistic discipline. — It cannot be gainsaid that 
surgery, even the most heroic, is kindly in its 
nature, seeing that it is actuated by motives of 
altruism. So with the right sort of school disci- 
pline. Petty authority may be, and often is, obtru- 
sive; but the large, generous, constructive kind 
never is. The discipline of the policeman exempli- 
fies the principle of the greatest good to the great- 
est number; but the discipline of the school 
concerns itself with the principle of the greatest 
good to the entire number. The recalcitrant member 
of the school democracy may be a most perplexing 
problem to the disciplinarian, but, if the school 
acknowledges its inability to cope with the situa- 
tion and ostracism is resorted to, the unfortunate 
victim of the decree becomes not only a perplexing 
problem to the larger democracy, but, also, a 
menace. 



102 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

The opportunities and facilities of society in the 
way of aiding a boy to become oriented are not 
equal to those of the high school. The work and 
atmosphere of the school are far more conducive 
to the restoration of his equilibrium. In the school 
he is working and living with his peers and they 
encourage and reinforce his every effort toward 
better things. One important function of the 
school is to interdict the making of pariahs for 
society. If the school only perseveres in its efforts 
until the boy has attained self-respect and self- 
reliance society will gladly aid him in his efforts 
toward self-support. But, if he comes to society 
lacking all these qualities, it repudiates him. When 
the scJiool comes to realize the full measure of its 
possibilities as a formative agency, society will 
be relieved of the incubus of reformatories. It is 
most unfortunate that, in the social consciousness, 
the reformatory is regarded as an adjunct of the 
school. An ounce of formation is better than a 
pound of reformation, and far cheaper. 

Co-operation of pupils. — Another important ele- 
ment that may be utilized to advantage in the 
general scheme of discipline is the pupils, them- 
selves. To enlist their active co-operation is good 
for them an*] good for the school. As has already 
been suggested, the principal does well to gather 
about him a group of leaders from the several 
classes as a second cabinet. Such leaders appre- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 103 

eiate the confidence reposed in them and gladly 
act for the principal in the way of interpreting the 
spirit of the school to newcomers. When the prin- 
cipal is ready to inaugurate some new plan or 
policy he calls them together and apprises them 
fully and frankly of his purpose, setting forth all 
the reasons and the ends which the new plan is 
to subserve. When, at length, he makes public 
announcement of the plan he finds that these lead- 
ers have created public sentiment that is favorable 
to the plan, and this plan becomes operative almost 
automatically. These leaders have but to drop 
hints here and there throughout the school as to 
what is or is not considered good form in their 
school and the novitiates gladly conform. 

Constructive discipline. — A boy came to a high- 
school principal and in a whining tone said he 
believed he would quit school as he could not do 
the work. The principal quietly said, ^^Well, if 
you feel that way about it, perhaps that is the best 
thing to do. This is no place for a quitter." An 
analysis of this episode reveals the fact that the 
principal, who is a far-seeing man, said enough but 
not too much. Besides, he said the right thing. 
Someone has given us the statement that consum- 
mate politeness is not the best tonic for an emo- 
tional collapse. This boy needed a tonic and the 
principal had the wisdom to select the one best 
suited to the need. In this tonic we find a recogni- 



104 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

tion of the boy's manhood. The reply was given 
as man to man, squarely, frankly, honestly, and 
wholly without arrogance or any hint of authority. 
Such an episode might have occurred on the street 
with two neighbors as the speakers. 

The result of this interview may be summed up 
in the statement that the boy gained a new view- 
point. Hence, this act of discipline was con- 
structive. There was nothing in the reply of the 
principal that would humiliate the boy, or antago- 
nize him. When the principal walked away the 
boy was free to act upon his own initiative. There 
was no mandate of authority for him either to 
accept or reject. Whatever the boy might elect to 
do, he must assume full responsibility for his 
decision. If he should quit school, by his own act 
he would convict himself of being a ''quitter"; but, 
if he should decide to remain in school, he would 
be entitled to all the glory of the achievement. 

This boy may have been seeking some plausible 
pretext for quitting school, but the principal did 
not furnish it. On the contrary, he so managed 
that the boy was haled into court before himself 
as judge, with no avenue of escape. Had the prin- 
cipal become voluble, grandiose, spectacular, sar- 
castic, or authoritative, the boy would have had 
the pretext he was seeking. With no remotest hint 
from the principal to that effect, the boy must have 
come upon the fact, in the process of his thinking, 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 105 

that he was in greater need of the school than the 
school was of him, and this revelation served to 
clarify his notions of proportion, and relative 
values — a discovery that every adolescent needs to 
make. 

Recognition of motives. — Whatever other motives 
come into the scheme of life, the motive of self- 
interest is basic, and, therefore, universal. In 
some way which possibly, he, himself, could not 
have explained, this boy finally arrived at the con- 
clusion that his interests would be best subserved 
by continuing his school work. Under the impetus 
of such a conclusion his attack of spiritual vaga- 
bondage inevitably evaporated, for he had gained 
a victory over himself. The courage and even 
exhiliration thus acquired helped to reconcile him 
to the work of the school, and his increased con- 
fidence in himself stood him in good stead in his 
renewed explorations of school studies. He became 
the mentor of his own conduct, and so experienced 
the thrill of free citizenship, and this, in turn, 
brought him into harmonious relations with the 
school order. 

Dealing with the individual. — The value of the 
sort of discipline which the above incident exem- 
plifies, is that it deals with individual cases. There 
are general rules of the school that apply, with 
equal force, to all pupils, but infractions of these 
rules must be dealt with singly to be most effective. 



106 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

Constructive discipline is a retail process, not 
wholesale. Any attempt at group-discipline tends 
to crystallize offenders into a compact unit of oppo- 
sition by arousing tlieir feeling for group patriot- 
ism and honor. Many an attempt at discipline has 
defeated its purpose by making the offender con- 
spicuous. In such a case, he feels that he can rely 
upon the support of his mates and so assumes an 
air of defiance. • If he can be brought face to face 
with himself in some unostentatious way, the 
chances are greatly in favor of his arriving at 
right decisions. A quiet, frank, heart-to-heart talk 
between disciplinarian and disciplined, will often 
prove a revelation to both. The offending boy has 
his point of view and has a full right to look at 
school matters from his angle until, through tactful, 
kindly management, he gains a new viewpoint. 
Such an interview amounts to soul-surgery, than 
which there is no higher type. In such an interview 
the teacher may make discoveries that widen his 
horizon and make for greater tolerance, patience, 
and sympathy. In such an event, the teacher does 
credit and honor to his own manhood by making 
such frank admissions, or even apologies to the 
pupil, as will reveal the loftiness and sincerity of 
his motives. No disciplinarian can ever afford to 
arrogate to himself either superiority or impecca- 
bility. 

The boy may be passing through what to him 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 107 

is a real crisis. At his age the adolescent has not 
a large fund of accumulated philosophy and wis- 
dom, and is ill able to withstand the attacks upon 
his hypersensitive nature which the adjustment 
to his environment is certain to make. He may 
be so sensitive as to become morbid, morose, and 
disenchanted with life in general. If so, he needs 
to be reassured, and to be restored to himself from 
his temporary apostasy. He may have overheard 
some word, or noted some look that made him con- 
scious of his poverty, or may have felt himself 
banished from some social group, or had some 
slight put upon him, perchance through mere inad- 
vertence, but he feels the sting, and, in such case, 
resentment may seem to him the proper, if not the 
only means of defense. All these things the tactful 
teacher will discover, if he approaches the task in 
the right spirit. No expenditure of time is too 
great, in such a situation, if only the boy is restored 
to himself and to the school. Unknown to society, 
many a teacher has more than earned his year's 
salary in a single day by saving a boy to upright 
living, and to a right attitude to the school and the 
community. 

The teacher's attitude. — Whoever is clothed with 
disciplinary powers should never feel free to con- 
sult his own ease and comfort in critical situations; 
and, it may be said, every occasion for discipline is 
a critical situation. Too much or too little may be 



108 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

fatal to the cause. Narrow is the way between 
Scylla and Charybdis. Any discipline that ema- 
nates from caprice, pique, whimsicality, or personal 
vanity is certain to fail of permanent beneficent 
results. It may seem to succeed, for the moment, 
but its influence is evanescent. Repression and 
coercion are superficial and do not reach the roots 
of conduct. The teacher who is jealous of his 
prerogatives is liable to do more harm than good, 
in matters of discipline. Unless discipline leaves 
the pupil in better case than it found him it is 
futile, or worse than futile. 

When there is a principle at stake the teacher 
cannot afford to yield one jot or tittle; he must say 
at the last what he said at the first. But, in the 
matter of details, he may show wisdom in making 
some concession to the individuality of the pupil 
in order that the greater good may ensue. Bluff 
and bluster have no rightful place in the disciplin- 
ary process. If the teacher knows he is right, he 
will be better able to convince the pupil that his 
position is in full accord with the best interests 
of all concerned, if he creates a situation that is 
favorable to clear thinking. If he is prodigal of 
words and noise, the pupil will discount his sin- 
cerity. The quiet demeanor of the teacher is cer- 
tain to carry conviction to the pupil. 

An illustration. — While not strictly applicable, 
an incident may be cited by way of illustration. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 109 

In a fifth grade there were two boys who were 
given to pilfering and to whom the frequent rifling 
of lunch-baskets was traced. In their numerous 
quests they had shown a decided preference for 
pie. The teacher, therefore, brought to school one 
day two generous portions of luscious apple-pie; 
daintily wrapped, and secreted them in the desk. 
In the course of the morning, he suspended work, 
for the time, and told the pupils a story, recount- 
ing the events in which the two boys had been 
concerned, but, in an impersonal way until the very 
close when he named the boys. He then invited 
them to the platform with all the grace of a finished 
courtier, and proffered them the pie with all the 
suavity that would become a king's caterer. When 
the boys hesitated, the teacher extolled the virtues 
of the pie, as well as its author, painting a picture 
to tempt an epicure. When the pie had finally 
been eaten, and the boys had swept the crumbs, the 
teacher thanked them in a very gracious manner 
and invited them to resume their usual places. The 
ceremony in its entirety was so stately and digni- 
fied that the levity was of a subdued nature. So 
successfully did the teacher simulate gravity and 
suavity that the pupils were all quite impressed. 
There was no hint of punishment, but the whole 
affair was characterized by courtly grace. 

Had the teacher been boisterous, or had he 
indulged in threats, the boys w^ould have bolted the 



110 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

pie and tlien lauglied in liis face. Tlie wliole affair 
was replete with irony, of course, but there was no 
word uttered that could possibly give offence, there 
was nothing said that was not absolutely true, and, 
therefore, no parent or friend could possibly take 
exceptions to the proceedings. The incident illus- 
trates punishment for the purpose of discipline, and 
shows that punishment may be administered and 
yet leave no scars. Ten years later one of those 
boys encountered that teacher on a midnight train, 
and confessed, as they laughed together, that that 
was one of the best lessons of his life, and a lesson 
for which he would never cease to be grateful. 

Wrong methods. — To impose school tasks upon 
pupils as a penalty betokens a lack of resource- 
fulness on the part of the teacher. Such a pro- 
cedure is illogical, inane, and harmful. We want 
our pupils to enjoy their studies, but, when we 
impose them as tasks by way of atonement for 
dereliction, we turn them against the studies, and 
cause them to discredit our educational and moral 
standards. To require a boy to write one hundred 
words on the blackboard as a punishment for some 
peccadillo is both illogical and pathetically silly. 
Such procedure is destructive and not constructive 
and, hence, subversive of the best interests of the 
school. The pupil, himself, could do better than 
that, and he knows it. He knows that he deserves 
punishment, but he could readily find one far more 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 111 

in keeping with, the offence. Such a penalty grates 
npon his sense of values, and he is harmed and not 
helped by the process. If punishment must be, it 
should always be adapted to and commensurate 
with the offence. Moreover, it should render the 
pupil immune from repetitions of the otfence, and 
all related offences. Punishment, in the school 
consciousness, should ever be of the nature of 
vaccination, and should never be conditioned by the 
state of the teacher's health or disposition. 

Elements of effective discipline. — Fairness, jus- 
tice, kindliness, sympathy, sanity, poise, serenity — 
these are a few of the elements that compose the 
fabric of effective discipline. To these must be 
added, with emphasis, the element of time. If it 
should require an entire year to bring a boy into 
full harmony with the school, then a year is not 
too much time to devote to his readjustment. Time 
can be spent to no better purpose than in helping 
young people to get their bearings, to the end that 
they may learn how to live fully and efficiently. 
Some advance may be made toward this goal in 
every class-exercise. The highest form of discipline 
is the entire absence of conscious discipline. This 
form is realized in the class exercise in which 
every pupil is pleasantly busy during every minute 
of the period. This is the ideal. In such a situa- 
tion, discipline never gives the teacher any con- 
cern. The best disciplinarian, therefore, is the 
teacher who can create such a situation. 



CHAPTER X 
COLLEGE INFLUENCE 

Relations of college and high school.— For many 
years controversy lias been rife touching tlie rela- 
tions that subsist, or should subsist, between the 
college and the high school. These controversies 
have been carried on in both camps sometimes with 
not a little feeling. It would seem a work of super- 
erogation, therefore, to enter into this question at 
the present stage of educational progress. Suffice 
it to say that the two institutions are inter-depend- 
ent. The college depends upon the high school 
for students; the high school depends upon the 
college for teachers. This reciprocal relation is 
gaining more general recognition, to the advantage 
of both institutions. Only rarely, of late, may we 
hear anything that harks back to the charge of 
college domination, and these receding echoes of a 
controversy that is past emanate, chiefly, from 
those who seek to justify their own lack of college 
training, and who are, by that very token, well-nigh 
negligible. 

Still, there is one phase of the inter-relation of 
these institutions that is so pertinent to the present 

112 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 113 

study of the liigli school that it is persistent in its 
claim to recognition. No one, any longer, attempts 
to deny to the college a permanent place as a factor 
of civilized society. In onr thinking it holds a 
noble and permanent position. So, likewise, does 
the high school. These facts admitted, we can 
approach the subject of their relations, one to the 
other, in a dispassionate manner. Since each one 
is necessary to the other, there should be not only 
an entire absence of anything approaching antag- 
onism but also the most cordial co-operation. 

If we conceive of the high school as occupying 
a small circle at the center of a large circle, and 
the circumferences of these two circles connected by 
straight lines at regular intervals, we shall have 
a series of truncated sectors all impinging upon 
the high school. These may fitly represent the 
various activities into which the life of the high 
school flows. It will be noted that the truncated 
portion of each of these sectors constitutes a part 
of the high school circle and the apex of each one 
lies at the center of the high school. Hence, the life 
currents of the high school are identical with the 
life currents of these various sectors. This is a 
graphic representation of a situation that is not 
fanciful but altogether real. These various sectors 
constitute the larger democracy, and we denominate 
them as industry, trade, commerce, professions, 
home, college, and the like. 



114 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

The college and other factors of civilization. — 

In this vieWy the college is seen to be coordinate 
with the other elements of civilization. It may 
dither from the others in many respects, but not in 
position. If we stand at the door of the high 
school on graduation day, we shall see the pupils 
bearing their credentials toward one or another 
of these agencies of the community — and all of 
them definitely planning to continue their educa- 
tion. The boy who goes to the farm has no thought 
of being satisfied with present attainments. The 
girl who enters upon the duties appertaining to 
the home is looking forward to a greater degree 
of efficiency and proficiency. Many graduates elect 
to continue their education in the college, rather 
than in the shop, the factory, the office, the mine, 
the home, or on the farm. Society needs all these 
activities and many others, in order to meet suc- 
cessfully all the relations of inter-dependence among 
its constituent members. Valuable and necessary 
as the college is as a factor of society, it can not 
hope to monopolize all the young people who pass 
out from the high school. Nor would that be well, 
for society must preserve a nice balance among all 
its parts, and so must utilize some of this young 
life in other activities. It is quite evident that 
we have not attained to that degree of wisdom 
necessary to a proper distribution of high-school 
graduates. The industries receive many who should 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 115 

continue their education in college, and the college, 
on the other hand, finds it necessary, each year, to 
send back to the industries many to whom the 
work of the college is not agreeable. 

Maladjustments in college and high school. — 
It were a bootless task to attempt to locate respon- 
sibility for this condition. To state the bare fact 
is a sufficiently sad commentary without further 
elaboration. It is a sorry procession that wends 
its inglorious way from the college each recurring 
year, with inappreciable diminution. It is one of 
the tragedies of our scheme of education that such 
waste can not be foreseen, and, therefore, fore- 
stalled. The college sees these young people go with 
apparent complacency and looks forward to a like 
exodus the following year with equal complacency. 
Then, again, there are many who are being wasted 
in the marts of trade who would achieve distinc- 
tion in the college. There is dereliction somewhere 
along the line in society or such waste would 
not be permitted. "We are avid on the subject 
of the conservation of forests, water supply, and 
other natural resources, with but scant concern as 
to the conservation of the powers of many of our 
young people. The high sohool, the college, and 
the home are all concerned, but each one seems 
to account it the business of the others to make 
such adjustments as will forestall waste. 

The high school makes some attempts to direct 



116 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

its' graduates toward those activities for which they 
are best adapted but these attempts are feeble and 
spasmodic instead of being scientific and persistent. 
Indeed, the high school boasts of the number of 
its graduates who enter college but is silent as to 
the number of failures. It would be difficult to find 
in any high school, perhaps, a record of its pupils 
for even the four years immediately succeeding 
their graduation. The assembling of such data 
would entail much careful labor on the part of the 
high school but these data would, in time, form a 
body of information from which valuable general- 
izations could be made in the matter of allocating 
pupils. 

Waste in the present order. — The large mortality 
in the college, especially in the first year, is more 
than sufficient to attract attention and ought to 
call forth an attempt to discover the cause and 
supply the remedy. If the high school is sending 
pupils to college who ought to seek other fields of 
endeavor, then the high school should be held 
accountable for the mistake. If, on the other 
hand, the college fails to reach its students by 
reason of ineffective teaching or other causes, then 
this fact ought to be brought to light and the rem- 
edy applied. In short, the college and the high 
school ought to be at one in their efforts to con- 
serve, in fullest measure, the young people of our 
land. The college accepts benignly all who present 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 117 

proper credentials, and, with equal benignity, bows 
many of tliem off the campus at the end of the first 
semester. When a boy is thus ostracized by the 
college the only place where insignia of mourning 
are displayed is his home. Neither the college nor 
the high school wears crepe. Whether, in the 
presence of such a calamity, either institution in- 
dulges in introspection, has not been made known. 

The foregoing must appear quite irrelevant to 
any who do not admit that the two institutions 
under consideration are inter-related. To any one 
who still looks upon high-school work as merely a 
preparation for college, all this must seem beside 
the mark. The high school does prepare for college 
just as it prepares for the farm, the shop, and the 
home, but the preparatory phase of high-school 
work is incidental. The high school is doing things 
and not merely getting ready to do things; and, 
because of this fact, it looks to the college for 
sanction and support because it looks upon the 
college as the exponent of intelligent patriotism 
in its highest and best form. If we are to socialize, 
humanize, and vitalize the work of the high school 
we shall fall short of the highest success in our 
endeavors unless we have the unequivocal co- 
operation of the college. 

College formalism in high-school work. — Seeing 
that the high-school teachers are the product of 
the college, they come to their work imbued with 



118 THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 

the spirit and the practices of the college. If they 
were subjected to great formalism during four 
years of college life their work in the high school 
will be formal in its nature. If formalism is inept 
in the high-school order, and, if the teacher brings 
from the college to the high school an undue degree 
of formalism that produces inharmony, then the 
college must assume some responsibility for this 
condition. The high-school teacher who indulges 
in ponderous formality, thereby imposes a great 
strain upon the politeness of her pupils. Ponder- 
osity irritates adolescence. Hence the teacher who 
has contracted the habit of formalism very soon 
comes to realize that she must undergo reconstruc- 
tion in order to come into harmonious relations 
with adolescence. 

High-school teachers adopt college mannerisms. — 
There is one point of view from which college 
influence is to be deplored and that has refer- 
ence to the tendency on the part of high-school 
teachers to appropriate college nomenclature. Imi- 
tation may be the sincerest flattery but, when col- 
lege professors see their graduates, in the high 
school, become expansive in borrowed titles, their 
feeling of chagrin must dominate all other senti- 
ments. If high-school teachers ape the college to 
the extent of annexing its nomenclature there is 
small wonder that high-school pupils feel that they 
have full warrant for doing the same thing in the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 119 

way of organizing fraternities and sororities. Sin- 
cerity, simplicity, and directness are qualities that 
appeal to high-school pnpils. They are strict cen- 
sors of the conduct of teachers and anything in 
the nature of a pose is an offence. As a matter of 
policy, then, if not of principle, high-school teachers 
can ill afford to forfeit the esteem of their pupils 
by aspiring to the use of names and titles that 
belong strictly to the college. 

Scholarship and humanness are not incompatible. 
On the contrary they are complimentary. Profound 
scholarship, notable teaching ability, and success 
as a human being may all combine in one person. 
Human qualities add luster to scholarship and ren- 
der teaching natural and effective. The college 
teacher who possesses these qualities finds that 
they are carried over into the high school by the 
teacher who imbibes them in his class-room and 
so, in a very positive way, the high school is the 
beneficiary of his profound scholarship and his 
human qualities. These qualities make a strong- 
appeal to high-school pupils and they are glad of 
the presence of their teacher without realizing their 
indebtedness to the college teacher. 

The opportunity of the college in training teach- 
ers. — It will be seen, therefore, that the college has 
a large opportunity in the way of training teachers 
in such manner as will fit them to be leaders of 
adolescents. The training of teachers is but a part 



120 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

of the work of the college, but the teachers it does 
send into the high school should be liberally en- 
dowed with such qualities as will render them 
acceptable to pupils of high-school age. Such 
teachers adorn their college training and, at the 
same time, make lasting contributions to the well- 
being of the school democracy. 

Adapting the work to the social need. — Recur- 
ring now to the graphic presentation of the life 
activities into which the high-school life flows, we 
see at once the necessity of adapting the work of 
the high school to the needs of society. The teach- 
ers learn their psychology in the college and bring 
to their work certain principles that seem to them 
fundamental. One of these is that teaching should 
attach itself to the native tendencies of the pupil. 
Another is that the learning process proceeds from 
the known to the related unknown. In her effort to 
apply these principles, the teacher makes some 
disquieting discoveries. She finds a boy in her 
class who is enamored of nature in all her moods 
and phases. He revels in the blue of the sky, the 
green of the grass, the gold of the sunset, and the 
glory of the starry night. Forest, stream, hill, 
birds, fish, insects — all hold for him a peculiar 
fascination. So, she tries to attach her teaching 
to the native interests of this boy by permitting 
him to substitute '^The Compleat Angler" and 
''Walden" for ^'De Coverly Papers" and '^The 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 121 

Conciliation Speecli." Her disillusionment comes 
Avitli the discovery that the college looks with 
marked disfavor upon the taking of such liberties 
with its requirements. When the guest at the hotel 
asked the Chinese waiter for salt with which to 
season his soup the waiter simply replied '^We 
don't salt our soup." 

However, this check does not damp her ardor 
for the boy's interests, nor lessen her faith in the 
validity of the pedagogical dictum upon which she 
had been acting. So, noting the boy's yearning for 
high-class contemporary literature, she encourages 
him to enter this field in his reading, and volunteers 
to excuse him from some of the more ancient read- 
ings. But again she is given to understand that 
requirements are requirements, not to be set aside 
at will and not to be lightly esteemed. When she 
makes inquiry as to the doctrine of native interests 
she is told that literature and psychology are two 
distinct departments. Try as she may, through 
loyalty to her college, she cannot rid herself of the 
conviction that the requirements should be made 
elastic enough to fit the boy. 

College and high school in accord. — The asperity 
of the word ^^requirements" has been mitigated 
somewhat by a gentler interpretation than formerly 
obtained, but it still presents a somewhat dicta- 
torial aspect to the high school that is trying to 
follow the tenets of such masters as James and 



122 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

Strayer in attaching the teaching to the pupiPs 
native interests. In his Social Psychology, Mc- 
Dougall gives ns the word ^'dispositions" and this 
word helps ns in our attempts at interpretation 
and application. The time will come, doubtless, 
when the college will welcome all young people 
who want to spend four years in the atmosphere of 
scholarship and culture, and will impose as the 
only prerequisite a real desire to profit by the 
opportunities which the college affords. The col- 
lege and the high school will then combine in a 
noble alliance to discover the native interests of 
all these young people and apply their teaching 
accordingly. 

When that time arrives both the high school and 
the college will cause their practice to conform to 
the principle that admonishes us to proceed from 
the known to the related unknown. In a mining 
community the course of study will make earth 
science major and will proceed from this known 
to the related unknowns, stage by stage, until the 
circle of illumination shall include history, lan- 
guage, and agriculture. In a farming community 
the process will be reversed. There is no good 
reason why a lad from the farm may not develop 
into a masterful geologist, by beginning with his 
native interests and proceeding from the known to 
the related unknown. 

The observance of this principle in the work of 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 123 

teaching will give fluidity to the course of study- 
that it may readily adapt itself to community con- 
ditions and interests. The application of our prin- 
ciple will draw far more young people into the 
high school and the college and thus impose added 
expense, but that is a matter of small import when 
compared with the economic gain. The miner's 
son or daughter may become an expert chemist and 
so have his potency and usefulness multiplied many 
fold. There is another pedagogical adage expressed 
in the words ''Begin where the iDoy is'^ which is 
but a variation of the principles already named.( 
If the boy is on the farm, then we are to begin with 
farming; if in a mine, then with mining; if in the 
forest, then with arboriculture. With this prin- 
ciple in mind we shall have no hard-and-fast course 
of study, but every course of study will be 
adaptable. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE RECITATION 

The recitation defined. — If it should be said that 
tlie recitation is a favorable opportunity for the 
transfusion of spirit from teacher to pupil, there 
are many who would regard the statement as 
fanciful if not fantastic. The incredulity which 
such a statement would evoke is chiefly due to 
the fact that, in the school consciousness, the reci- 
tation is a time, a place, and an opportunity for 
ail exchange of words. These words may be found 
on the pages of the book, or they may emanate 
from teacher or pupils; but, it still remains true 
that words from some source are fundamental in 
the ordinary concept of the recitation. In general, 
we estimate the value of a recitation by the num- 
ber of words that are crowded into the recitation- 
period; nor does the school consciousness admit 
the possibility of a wordless recitation. Elaborate 
and painstaking studies have been made of the 
recitation in a multitude of classes with steno- 
graphic reports of the entire proceedings. These 
studies are illuminating in many ways and, espe- 
cially, in the Avay of showing avidity for words. 
Some recitations seem well-nigh hysterical in their 

124 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 125 

liaste to use as many words as possible in a forty- 
five-minute period. 

We speak of the spirit of tlie scliool and agree 
substantially upon the significance of the expres- 
sion, but when we refer to spirit in the recitation 
we associate the word with manifestations of 
vivacity, never with profound and penetrating 
silence. In the common thought the more noise 
there is in a class-exercise the more spirit there is. 

Education a spiritual process. — ^We are wont to 
say, and with some fervor, that education is a 
spiritual process; we regard the recitation as an 
essential part of the school regime; but, in our 
practice, we seem to look upon the spiritual phase 
of the recitation as a negligible minor. Possibly 
we have not developed instruments sufficiently 
delicate to make nice assessments of spiritual 
values, but certain it is that our system of grades 
and promotions is based far more largely upon the 
manipulation of words than upon manifestations of 
spirit. We speak of the spirit of the woods, the 
spirit of the country, and the spirit of the moun- 
tains ' and know them to be verities. Sublimity 
generates within us a poignant ecstacy and trans- 
ports us beyond and above ourselves and we find 
ourselves en rapport with things that are high, 
and noble, and holy. We commune with the forest, 
the sea, the country, or the mountains and exper- 
ience a feeling of exaltation. 



126 THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 

Experiences of the spirit. — These sensations may 
be generated Avitliout words and we call them 
experiences of the spirit. If w^e conld take the 
class in geography to the top of Mt. Eigi for a 
period of forty-five minutes words wonld seem 
weak if not impious during that period. But the 
educational process would not be interrupted 
because of the absence of words. On the contrary, 
this process would be active during the entire time 
and the members of the class would have under- 
gone an inner change as the result of their exper- 
ience. Could they sit for another period in the 
Cathedral of Cologne no word could add to the 
effectiveness of such an experience in raising them 
to a high plane of feeling from which there would 
be no relapse. Such experiences are a positive and 
permanent gain in the way of spiritual develop- 
ment; and, after all, the development of the spirit 
is the great end and aim of all educational agencies. 
The greater such spiritual development the more 
readily does the body yield obedience to the behests 
of the spirit, and, hence, the more rapid our advance 
toward the goal of '' complete living." 

We are told that Carlyle and Tennyson could 
sit together before a glowing fire in silence for an 
entire evening and experience keen pleasure. In 
making excursions into the realms of the infinite 
their spirits merged in the common quest and thus 
became affinitive. In such a situation words would 



THE HICtH school PROBLEM 127 

have been a hindrance rather than a help. Words 
are useful in the way of producing spiritual situa- 
tions, but, if they fail of this purpose, they are 
futile. On his death-bed a father asked a wayward 
son to sit in his room alone for half an hour just 
after the funeral services. The son came from the 
room transformed. Whatever happened in that 
room was a spiritual process and that is precisely 
our definition of education. The father provided 
for a spiritual situation and the regeneration of 
the son was the ^sequence. 

Knowledge and spirit. — Knowledge is power only 
when sublimated by spirit. Indeed, spirit is the 
convoying vehicle of knowledge. Education is far 
more and better than an intellectual debauch. 
Intellectuality may be accounted a success but 
spirit transforms it into a triumph and it does not 
comport with the high aims of teaching to degrade 
a possible triumph into a mere success. John 
Murdock pronounced Eobert Burns a failure in 
music, but, later on, the pupil climbed to such 
heights in music that the teacher could not follow. 
What John Murdock failed to do in the way of 
touching the spirit of the boy was done by a 
neighbor girl as they worked together in the har- 
vest; and John Murdock would be unknown to 
history but for the fact that Robert Burns was his 
pupil. Here was a pupil who achieved success, and 
then a triumph, and both in spite of his teacher. 



128 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

Truth and freedom. — It is quite as true in a 
pedagogical sense as it is in a Biblical sense that 
^'Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make 
you free." It is to be noted that freedom is con- 
ditioned upon knowledge of the truth and not upon 
the existence of the truth. In order that truth 
may become knowledge it must be set out in such 
a way that the spirit of the learner will leap toward 
and apprehend it. Unless this happens there is no 
freedom, but the pupil goes on in his thralldom, 
deaf, dumb, and blind to the truth that is all about 
him. Sometimes the teacher reminds her pupils 
that she has told them certain things repeatedly. 
Small wonder, then, that they do not know. There's 
the pity of it! The teacher monotonously, albeit 
mellifluously burbles forth inane platitudes but 
nothing is happening in the spirit of the pupil. 
What she says is all truth, but it does not become 
knowledge for the reason that it produces no reac- 
tion. The pupils sit there in a desert of words, 
with no oasis in sight, and, with polite tolerance, 
await their emancipation from the dreary ordeal. 

In order to become knowledge truth must be so 
handled by the teacher that it will ignite the spirit 
of the pupil and thus produce a spiritual explosion. 
When the spirit of the pupil is thus stirred there 
is no mistaking the signs. The flash of the eye, 
the flush of the cheek, and the attitude of the body 
all betoken a spiritual arousement. There is a 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 129 

slang phrase, ''nothing stirring,'^ which is quite 
apropos in this connection. If there is nothing 
stirring in the spirit of the child the teacher may 
know to a certainty that her work is not effective. 
There is much stirring when these same pupils are 
on the athletic field, and, if they are listless in the 
class, it is well to reflect that their natures did 
not change when they crossed the threshold of the 
school, but that they are quite as willing to be 
stirred in the class-room as they were in the ball 
game if the teacher only knows how to do it. Their 
very listlessness is a challenge to the teacher's 
ingenuity to find some way of creating a spiritual 
stir. Better more games and fewer lessons if the 
work of the recitation produces spiritual somno- 
lence. 

Spiritual stirring. — When the spirit of the pupil 
is stirred he no longer looks at the teacher as if 
she were a table, a chair, or a necessary evil, but 
he looks at her as one who is animate, potent, and 
regnant. It is spirit answering back to spirit, and 
the situation is electric. In such a situation the 
real teacher finds her keenest delight, for she has 
attained the fruition of her desires and plans when 
she sees the pupil wake up inside. This is the end 
and aim of true teaching, for the acquisition of 
knowledge inevitably follows. Such an awakening 
and distension of the spirit means the apprehension 
of truth which is transformed into knowledge and 



130 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

this becomes a permanent and exhilirating posses- 
sion. This ignition of the spirit, answering back 
to the presentation of the truth, is the psychological 
moment in all true teaching. This is the mount 
of transfiguration where the spirit of teacher and 
pupils blend in the presence of truth illumined. 

Misuse of school materials. — Writers who inveigh 
against the use of text-book and grade-book in the 
recitation have failed to make it entirely clear why 
the practice is to be deprecated. They had done 
well to explain that these agencies obstruct the 
interflow of spirit between teacher and pupils, and 
so militate against the highest success of the reci- 
tation. The teacher must be free to note every 
incipient token of spiritual ignition, that her teach- 
ing may have generated and be ready, on the 
instant, to answer back in kind. This she cannot 
do if her eyes are riveted upon a book or if she 
is pondering the cabalistic mark that she is to 
set down opposite the pupil's name in the grade- 
book. If she does that she is a mere clerk and not 
a teacher. When the fine frenzy of learning has 
the pupil in its grip it is a rude transgression to 
stifle or interrupt it by the rattle and clanking of 
school machinery, however important the machinery 
may be at proper times and places. 

Furthermore, the presence of the grade-book and 
text-book does not produce an atmosphere that is 
conducive to spiritual growth and freedom, and, 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 131 

for that reason, tliey should be kept in the back- 
ground. To the pupils they seem the teacher's 
insignia of authority and so become agents of 
repression if not instruments of torture. If the 
pupils are conscious of the teacher's authority or 
superiority their spirits will be trammelled and 
will not readily react. It is the high mission of 
the teacher to create a situation, free from all 
untoward influences, that will make for the spiritual 
freedom of her pupils, and so render their spirits 
accessible to her own spirit and the spirit of truth 
she is seeking to inculcate. 

The astronomical observatory is located far up 
on the mountain top and the firing of guns is 
prohibited within a certain radius that there may 
be no derangement of the delicate mechanism of 
the instruments. But the delicacy of spirit far 
transcends the delicacy of material instruments. 
So delicate is spirit, indeed, that it may be influ- 
enced by a sunrise, the fragrance of a flower, the 
note of a bird, or the soughing of the wind. This 
may seem quite inconsistent with many of the 
surface manifestations of adolescence, but surface 
indications are not always trustworthy. The com- 
mander who achieved distinction in war, said to his 
men, when the ship of the enemy was going down, 
^^Boys, don't cheer; men are dying over there." 

Verbosity and volubility. — Seeing, then, that the 
spiritual part of pupils is of such extreme delicacy, 



132 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

it behooves the teacher to interdict all influences 
that will disturb their spiritual counterpoise. One 
such disturbing influence is verbosity. A deluge 
of words tends to quench the fires of the spirit. 
Many volumes teem with injunctions against over- 
much talking on the part of the teacher; but the 
practice still persists, whether as a habit or an 
inclination does not appear. The voluble teacher 
is often less than effective. The effective teacher 
is she who says the most in the fewest words. The 
effectiveness of her personality renders much-speak- 
ing superfluous. 

Some teachers attempt to justify their volubility 
by citing the exactions of the lesson . assignments 
and explain that progress is more rapid if they, 
themselves, interpret the lessons to the pupils. 
Such teachers make the fatal mistake of confusing 
education with the turning of the pages of a book. 
The farmer may assign to himself the task of 
ploughing two acres in a day, but no such definite 
assignment can be made when dealing with sentient 
materials. To be devotees at the shrine of stereo- 
typed assignments is to do violence to the spiritual 
nature of our pupils and to the cause of education 
as a spiritual process. In brief, assignments are 
made for the pupils and not the reverse, our prac- 
tices to the contray, notwithstanding. When once 
the spirit of the pupil is broad awake, it may out- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 133 

strip the most ambitious assignments. Assignments 
are finite; spirit is infinite. 

Traditional methods. — In tlie popular thought, a 
recitation is a series of questions and answers hav- 
ing a greater or less relevancy to the subject under 
consideration. Some teachers would find it difficult 
to occupy a forty-five minute period without ques- 
tions and answers, unless, indeed, they indulged 
their no less reprehensible penchant for lecturing. 
Some teachers have been known to ask as many as 
one hundred and fifty questions in a single period, 
all the while congratulating themselves upon their 
efficiency as teachers. Such a procedure is but a 
sort of refined guessing-contest and produces no 
spiritual explosion unless by some happy accident. 
The recitation sadly declines from its high estate 
when it degenerates into a sort of. slot-machine 
into which we project a question in the hope of 
extracting a somewhat intelligent answer. 

The question-and-answer method is very liable to 
engender in the pupil a feeling that he is on the 
witness-stand and, in such a situation, he is reluc- 
tant to reveal his inner self. Certainly his spirit 
does not stir in such an ordeal. He is quite apt to 
encase himself in indifference if not in actual defi- 
ance. He has the feeling, possibly, that the teacher 
is striving to enmesh him in difficulties and he 
resents her assumption of superiority. He would 



134 THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 

fain liave her take tlie witness-stand and promote 
liim to the rank of questioner. The wonder is that 
more teachers do not adopt this very plan by way 
of establishing a cordial free-masonry between 
themselves and their pupils. The constant use of 
questions and answers and the consequent deaden- 
ing of interest is to be deplored, seeing that this 
method is not a flattering commentary on the 
teacher's resourcefulness. The Great Teacher used 
the question method sparingly, but was lavish in 
His use of illustrations and we do well to profit 
by His example. 

The real purpose of the recitation. — Reiterating 
our definition of education as a spiritual process 
it requires no great stretch of imagination to see 
that the spirit of the learner, if it is rightly attuned, 
and the spirit of the study coalesce and knowledge 
is the resultant. We readily admit that there is a 
spirit of poetry which is embodied in the form of 
words and which the words are made to evoke. 
"When the spirit of the pupil, then, is brought into 
a relation of concord with the spirit of poetry there 
ensues an instant blending of the two, and the 
pupil gives forth evidences of exaltation that are 
as pleasing as they are unmistakable. The teach- 
er's task is to bring about this relation of concord. 
To do this, she, herself, must be en rapport with 
the spirit of poetry. This cannot be simulated, but 
must be genuine. A principal rejected the applica- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 135 

tion of a teacher for a position in the department 
of English in a large high school because of a 
casual remark that she does not like poetry. He 
well knew that her aversion to poetry would infect 
the spirits of the pupils. 

As there is a spirit of poetry, so there is a spirit 
of history, a spirit of science, a spirit of art, and 
so on through the entire range of high-school 
studies. Teachers of science spend weeks, or even 
months, in an effort to generate a scientific spirit 
as a condition precedent to the successful teaching 
of science studies. We speak of a feeling for 
nature, a feeling for art, a feeling for language, 
by which we mean that the spirit of the person is 
attuned to the spirit of nature, art, or language. 
If two musical instruments are in accord, an 
impact upon one will set the other in vibration, 
and it gives forth the same musical note as the 
one upon which the performer acts. So, in like 
manner, the spirit that is in accord with the spirit 
of history gives forth a historical note whenever 
the subject of history is touched. 

Herein lies the purpose and the inner secret of 
the recitation. Its function is to touch the spirit 
of the pupil and cause the two spirits to commingle 
and unify, that the study may become a part of 
the pupiPs very self. In all this the teacher is the 
great factor. Her spirit must be imbued, even 
surcharged, with the spirit of the study; she must 



136 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

open the spirit of the pupil for the reception of the 
new influence; and then she must conduct the 
spirit of the study through the open door. Thus 
the teacher brings it to pass that intelligence and 
culture becomes embodied in the life currents of 
the school and so flow out into the life of society. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE STUDY-LESSON 

Conversation in school work. — Happy is that 
school whose teacher can converse with the pupils. 
Many teachers can talk to or at the pupils, bnt 
fewer can converse with them. Conversation 
implies the use of a common language, for only 
such can be the vehicle of ideas and thoughts. 
The gamin of the alley and the professor in the 
college would find it difficult to carry on a con- 
versation, primarily because they do not speak the 
same language. They must meet upon a common 
plane of comprehension before conversation is 
possible. In such a situation, the professor will 
find it easier to learn the language of the gamin 
than to teach him the language of the college. 
True, he adopts this mode of procedure in order 
to help the boy to his plane of speech. But he must 
first learn the boy's language before he can hope 
to accomplish his purpose. When he has made 
himself familiar with the language of the boy, he 
has won a vantage-point whence leadership will 
naturally issue. They are now ready for a free 

137 



138 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

exchange of mental and spiritual commodities, sim- 
ply because they speak the same language. 

One source of trouble and discouragement in the 
school is that the pupil does not, in the least, know 
what the teacher is saying. Her language may be 
English to herself, but it is Greek to the pupil. In 
such a case, the teacher may conclude that the 
pupil is stupid or, at best, lazy and indifferent. In 
reality, the pupil is merely dazed by the sounds of 
a foreign tongue, and does not know how to extri- 
cate himself from the disheartening dilemma. If 
the teacher could or would but speak in his lan- 
guage, the very sound of her voice in vocalizing 
his words would hearten him and give him the 
courage he needs in his search for truth. 

The pupil's pride. — It should always be kept in 
mind that every pupil, at bottom, is proud and that 
this feeling of pride interdicts a revelation of igno- 
rance in the presence of his fellows. Thus it hap- 
pens that, when the teacher uses a language that 
is foreign to his comprehension, he remains silent 
and permits the unknown words to float above his 
head without a note of protest. Let them think 
him stupid if they must, but he will not incriminate 
himself. 

Pupils of high-school age are by nature responsive 
and this quality is a valuable asset in school pro- 
cedure if it is made available. But no one can 
find exercise for his responsiveness in the presence 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 139 

of an unknown language and is quite ready to 
deprecate the use of such language as indicating 
an assumption of superiority. 

Just at this point we find conversation of supreme 
importance as a function of school policy, and the 
teacher who fails to appreciate its value thereby 
jeopardizes the interests of the recitation-period. 
Conversation is fundamental in the way of promot- 
ing a community feeling between teacher and pupil 
and this precedes and underlies all real progress. 
Conversation establishes a relation of reciprocity 
between teacher and pupils and tends to generate 
a feeling of co-ordination. If we are to attach our 
teaching to the native dispositions or interests of 
the pupils, we must, first of all, discover what these 
interests are, and a free and frank give-and-take 
conversation affords the most favorable means for 
making this discovery. 

Through the conversation of pupils we can hear 
the heart-beats of the community and are thus 
enabled to act intelligently and sympathetically in 
articulating the work of the school and the life of 
society. Pupils have things to say that are worth 
the teacher's hearing and when the teacher is an 
attentive listener to what pupils say she gains the 
very sort of information that she needs to make; 
her teaching effective. If she insists upon homilies 
and lectures, she not only stifles the inclination of 
pupils to make real contributions to the work that 



140 * THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

is forward, but, also, denies to herself much infor- 
mation of vital import. Thoughtful listening is an 
important part of good teaching. 

In a large high school a boy complained to the 
principal of the incessant talk of the teacher, say- 
ing that she seemed to assume that the pupils had 
nothing of any value to say. He further intimated 
that there was a feeling among the pupils that the 
teacher's monopolizing the time was due to appre- 
hension on her part that she might be disconcerted 
if she accorded to the pupils freedom in expressing 
their opinions. The tragedy of such a situation is 
that the teacher is unable to sense the feeling of 
the class but continues, to use the exact language 
of this boy, ^^to hold forth world without end.'' 

Community of interests. — In the nature of the 
case, there must be common interests upon which 
teacher and pupils can unite, as a basis for intel- 
ligent conversation. Such a conversation if directed 
but not dominated by a resourceful teacher attaches 
itself naturally to the work in hand and serves to 
illuminate and reinforce the facts of the lesson. In 
the atmosphere of such a conversation the pupils 
expand and attain to their maximum of docility. 
A natural conversation has many positive advan- 
tages over the riot of questions and explanations 
that so often characterize the recitation-period. 

An analysis of a recitation discloses some inter- 
esting facts that are often overlooked. In the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 141 

school consciousness reciting bnlks so large that 
all else is dwarfed into comparative insignificance. 
Pupils and parents have the notion that school is a 
place for mere reciting; and, somehow, they have 
come to think that learning and reciting are indis- 
soluble concomitants. Indeed, reciting has become 
an obsession with very many teachers, also, who 
seem to think that the development of mind is con- 
ditioned upon much reciting. 

Assigning lessons. — Such teachers assign so many 
pages, or paragraphs, or problems, or experiments 
as the lesson for tomorrow, prefixing the inevitable 
word *'take'^ to the assignment. If they were 
challenged to give an interpretation of the word 
^^take'' which they use so freely and constantly, 
they would find themselves fronting a difficult task. 
We have scholarly volumes on the subject of teach- 
ing pupils how to study, but such teachers rise 
superior to all these books, and, with sublime non- 
chalance, combine all the wisdom of the books in 
their one word take. Then, the next day they 
try to discover if the pupils have *^ taken" the 
assignment, make some records in a grade-book, 
and the sum total of the proceedings they call a 
recitation. Such a process, continued week after 
week without variation, is a severe test of the 
pupils' power of endurance. 

If teachers who have this conception of the reci- 
tation would devote an entire summer to the work 



142 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

of putting content into their word ^'take'^ their 
pupils would have occasion for congratulation upon 
a summer well spent. The word is a hackneyed 
one and utterly devoid of meaning or significance 
unless the teacher endows it with intelligible con- 
tent. To take forty lines of Latin, or two pages 
of English, or ten pages of history may mean many 
different things, and the pupil has a per^^ect right 
to proceed upon his own interpretation, unless the 
teacher specifies otherwise. Too often the pupil 
is left to guess as to the nature of the teacher's 
mental operations. 

The test of an effective class exercise. — The reci- 
tation should seek to test the fidelity of pupils in 
the preparation of the lesson, to clear up any 
difficulties of the assignment by the free use of 
analogies and illustrative material, to connect the 
facts of the lesson to the life experiences of the 
pupils, and to blaze the way for further progress. 
In the order of importance, the last-named phase is 
ever conspicuous. The amount of reciting done is 
often out of all proportion to class interests and 
progress. If the pupils have solved all the prob- 
lems in the lesson it is a sheer waste of time and 
energy to require a re-solving of them at the board. 
To do this is rather a reflection upon the intelli- 
gence and veracity of the pupils. It may be found 
profitable to solve other problems of like nature, 
but not the same ones. The purpose is to develop 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 143 

principles and not merely to solve problems. If 
the principle can be made clear by the use of one 
problem, then one is sufficient; but if forty are 
necessary to elucidate the principle, then forty are 
none too many. 

It were a travesty upon good sense to entertain 
the notion that any text-book, however excellent, 
contains just enough material, not too much nor 
too little, to render the subject readily comprehen- 
sible to every member of the class-group. This 
conception of a text-book no longer exists save in 
the minds of that happily diminishing remnant of 
the teaching fraternity who conceive it to be the 
sole mission of the teacher to transfer the contents 
of the book into the minds of their pupils. Most 
teachers know full well that the author of the text 
leaves much to the judgment and discretion of the 
teacher in the way of organizing the material of 
the book and adapting it to the special needs and 
capacities of individual pupils and, also, in the 
way of abridging this material or supplementing 
it from all available sources, as the progress of 
events may suggest. 

School and garden compared. — If teacher and 
pupils were planning, planting, or cultivating a 
school-garden there would be no assumption of 
the role of dictator by the teacher, but there would 
be a careful co-operative study of all things per- 
taining to the work of school-gardening — topog- 



144 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

raphy, soil, season, seeds, plants, implements, and 
methods of cultivation. There would be no sharp 
divisions b'etween successive days, but each day's 
plans and work would utilize the work of the pre- 
ceding day and be a preparation for the next. A 
school-lesson bears a close analogy to a school- 
garden and is capable of the same sort of co-opera- 
tive cultivation. This co-operation, moreover, 
presupposes helpful and sympathetic conversation 
and the extreme minimum of dictation. 

When the members of the group come together 
in the garden, with common interests and common 
purpose, they note, first of all, what changes have 
been wrought by time and the elements since they 
last met. These things carefully noted, there ensue, 
inevitably, corrections, eliminations, and readjust- 
ments to give symmetry and continuity to the work 
in progress. One member pulls a weed, another 
straightens a plant, another loosens the soil. Or, 
one pupil corrects his own misconception of the 
reading of a problem, another confesses that the 
principal parts he gave pertain to another verb, 
and still another adjusts the fact or date in history 
that he discovers awry. They do not hoe the entire 
garden each day, but only such spots as need special 
attention. Since only three plants, or three prob- 
lems, show signs of drooping, these three and only 
these become the objects of their care. 

To carry the analogy still further we find that 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 145 

this sort of cultivation lays under tribute all the 
knowledge of the homes that can possibly con- 
tribute to the solution of problems in school. Each 
pupil becomes a medium of communication between 
the school and the home and both institutions profit 
by the activities of the day. Whether from the 
garden or the lesson, there are gleanings that reach 
the supper-table through this interested medium 
and thus each home becomes, in goodly measure, 
a co-operating agency in the school activities. The 
boy laughs over his discomfiture because of a mis- 
pronounced word in class, and, at once, all other 
members of the family are made conscious of their 
own shortcomings in the use of that very word. 

Again, the school-garden and the school-lesson 
may be deemed analogous in respect of the prepa- 
ration for tomorrow. A stake must be set today in 
order to obviate the growth of the plant in a wrong- 
direction. Just here the wise teacher becomes an 
important conserver of time and amiability. There 
is no valid reason for permitting a girl to spend 
twenty minutes and many tears over quaesivi when 
a mere suggestion, in advance, as to the source of 
this form w^ould make her way clear and happy. 
If, by some happy necromancy, a pupil discovers 
that rehar is a derivitive of reor that fact does not 
prove him superior to the others, who failed to 
make this discovery. 

Technical difficulties. — There are technical mat- 



146 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

ters in most lessons that should be cleared up, for, 
or, at least, pointed out to the pupils in advance. 
This the teacher can do in a conversational manner 
and without any exploiting of her own wares of 
erudition. The driver who knows the road can 
save his passengers many a profitless jolt by his 
wise forethought in anticipating difficult situations. 
It is quite inexcusable that teachers permit pupils 
to go through life picturing the Hotel de Ville of 
Byron's poem " Waterloo '^ as a hotel and not the 
City Hall of Brussels. It is really no crime for 
the teacher to read, in advance, a difficult passage 
in the foreign language lesson. After such a read- 
ing they will attack the passage v/ith avidity and 
courage, and derive far more profit and pleasure 
from the study than they could possibly derive 
from the mere disentangling of technical knots. It 
comports far better with the process of learning 
for the teacher to furnish the ounce of prevention 
rather than to render first aid to the injured. 

What has been said hitherto must not be con- 
strued as an advocacy of the ''soft pedagogy '^ that 
would clear the pathway of the pupil of all diffi- 
culties. On the contrary, it is the suggestion of a 
plan by virtue of which the pupils will attack their 
difficult problems with full knowledge of the diffi- 
culties and with courage born of a clear and definite 
purpose to persevere till the goal is reached. It is 
a plan, however, that would obviate perplexities 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 147 

that have no special educational value and have no 
ranking save as perplexities. If the driver is rush- 
ing in quest of a physician there is some justifica- 
tion for his break-neck speed over obstructions; 
but he would be accounted foolish to propel his 
machine over such obstructions merely to prove its 
strength and prowess. It is the sheerest folly to 
have perplexity in the class exercise for the mere 
sake of perplexity. 

Learning as distinguished from reciting.— Such 
a plan contemplates the expenditure of a consider- 
able part of the recitation-period in the preparation 
of the succeeding lesson and is based upon the 
theory that learning is more important than mere 
reciting. Moreover, this plan serves to conserve the 
mental equilibrium of the pupils, and certainly this 
is a worthy consideration. Still further, this plan 
gives free and full scope to the persuasiveness of 
both pupils and teacher rather than to their com- 
bativeness. Their common interests and aims impel 
them along parallel lines and not at cross purposes. 
The pupils are not on one side and the teacher on 
the other, for there is only one side. Together they 
develop a common language and this fact con- 
tributes to the ease of conversation. Antagonism 
cannot thrive in such an atmosphere of co-operation. 

Finally, the study-lesson plan obviates the neces- 
sity for so many textual notes. The presence of 
so many explanatory notes, in many text-books. 



148 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

tends, by implication, to call in question the teach- 
er's scholastic qualifications. It is to be hoped 
that the time will soon come when all high-school 
teachers will be so well able to interpret the text 
that the great mass of textual notes that now cum- 
ber our text-books and discredit the teachers will 
be regarded as quite superfluous if not an imperti- 
nance. When the teacher makes the explanations 
necessary to clarify the text the pupils drink from 
a living fountain and are thereby refreshed. 



CHAPTER XIII 
SPECIALIZATION 

The nature of Adolescents. — A prime requisite 
for effective dealing with high-school pupils is a 
full recognition of the primal urge that character- 
izes the age of adolescence. These young people 
are instinct with life, verve, and a predisposition to 
seek adventures. Inherently they are discoverers 
and investigators. In a new environment, they 
make more discoveries in hours than their parents 
or teachers would make in days. In a strange 
city, they seem to sense the chief places of interest, 
the routes of travel, and all the unusual details, all 
without guidance; whereas, their conventionalized 
parents or teachers must needs have recourse to 
guide-books, time-tables, and policemen in order 
to gain even a moiety of the great mass of informa- 
tion which is theirs to command. In the country 
their excursions yield, as if by magic, a generous 
knowledge of birds, animals, insects, flowers, trees, 
and streams, the mere recital of which amazes 
their elders who have been cautiously moving about 
in a far more restricted orbit. 

To these adolescents there are no metes and 

149 



150 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

bounds; the world is tlieir province and their prom- 
ised land and they know of no reason why they 
should not go forth and possess it. Their world 
is not parceled off by fences of convention, but all 
is open and free. To them aspiration is the breath 
of life, and their mental reach brooks neither 
boundaries nor barriers. They are possessed of a 
fine audacity that the unthinking or unknowing 
are wont to call impudence. They stand tip-toe 
upon the pinnacle of things and their hopes and 
enthusiasms are limited only by the horizon. Their 
metier is to sketch, with broad and sweeping 
strokes, the outlines of life's picture, trusting, with 
sublime and roseate faith, that the future will sup- 
ply the details. Looking at them through our 
conventional glasses they seem but manifestations 
of life, in the incipient stage of becoming individ- 
ualized. They are contradictory in the extreme: 
even while their honest laughter betokens the 
utmost frankness and sincerity, we have an eerie 
feeling that they are cryptic and enigmatic, and 
we long to explore them just to note the workings 
of their inner mechanism. In their presence we 
seem to be standing before innumerable push- 
buttons without knowing, in the least, which ones 
to push in order to evoke the things we desire. 

Tradition not adequate. — Such, in general, is the 
material that comprises the high-school democracy, 
and presents to the teacher both a grave responsi- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 151 

bility and an alluring opportunity. With such 
material as the field of our endeavor traditional 
methods will not avail. The problem is ever new, 
and we can not warp this material to conform to 
the tenets of tradition. It is Schopenhauer, per- 
haps, who tells of the so-called sacred apes of 
Benares that have been worshiped so long that 
they have come to believe themselves sacred. So 
with the tenets of tradition. Their assumption of 
sacredness become vacuous in the presence of high- 
school pupils. The teacher who attempts to fashion 
such material in accordance with these tenets will 
soon sorrow to find the results proving that the 
illustration of the proverbial bull in the china-shop 
is altogether inadequate. Her philosophic calm 
is not proof against adolescence, with all its intrica- 
cies and mysteries, and, when the crisis comes, she 
is liable to capitulate and compromise with the 
situation by resorting to the weak expedient of 
reporting the pupil to the principal and then find- 
ing relief in tears. 

But the problem persists in spite of all this and, 
perchance, in more emphatic form, because of all 
this. Philanthropy may fray out into meddlesome- 
ness. A situation that requires delicate handling 
may not be compounded by assault, and the best 
of intentions may result in disaster. The assump- 
tion that any person who holds a license can teach 
school fronts an underscored negation in many a 



152 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

situation in the high school. However, the obliga- 
tions of the teacher may not be abrogated at will 
even though she is unable to compass the solution 
of the problem. Both the problem and the obliga- 
tion remain as abiding factors of the situation, nor 
may either of them be obviated. The problem may 
be solved in time, but not by a present ipse dixit. 
The expectations of society. — ^All the foregoing 
has been adduced in the way of depicting what is 
conceived to be the true situation in the high- 
school problem. It seems in place to indulge in 
some reiteration and emphasis in order to bring 
before the mind, in clear relief, and with some 
degree of exactness the problem of which the high 
school is seeking a solution. The larger democracy 
needs men and women, first of all, to carry into 
successful execution its purposes, and calls upon 
the high school to supply the need. The first duty, 
then, of the high school is to organize its activities 
in such a way that they will function in manhood 
and womanhood. In such a view even scholarship is 
of secondary importance and specialized scholar- 
ship is distinctly subordinate. The first concern 
of the farmer is to secure a man as tenant who has 
the qualities of industry, integrity, self-respect, 
self-reliance, and docility. Such a man having 
been secured, the special phases of farm cultivation 
become articulated in the scheme in a natural and 
sequential way. But drainage, fertilization, crop 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 153 

rotation, planting, harvesting, pruning, and spray- 
ing are all subordinate to the primary consideration 
of securing the right sort of man to carry on these 
activities. 

The analogy holds in respect of society. Men and 
women are its first consideration — men and women 
who are effective because of their integrity, indus- 
try, self-respect, self-reliance, and openmindedness. 
Men and women possessing these and kindred quali- 
ties are fundamental in the scheme of society and 
their differentiation into special classes is a later 
development. The man must be larger than his 
trade, profession, or work. Indeed, his vocation 
should be but one of the manifestations of the man. 
If he is, first of all, a man and then a teacher his 
teaching will be effective in promoting the public 
good; but, if he is a mere teacher, his work will 
leave much to be desired. Teaching may be the 
chief manifestation of the man but society will not 
suffer if it be the only one. If skill in the culinary 
art is the sole manifestation of the woman, her 
effectiveness as a member of society will be much 
restricted. On the other hand, if she comes to her 
place in society endowed with intelligence and 
industry, she will readily acquire skill in cookery 
as well as in many other accomplishments. 

The meaning of training. — The first duty of the 
high school, then, is to produce men and women 
of this type and this is society's chief expectation. 



154 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

To do this effectively careful consideration must 
be given to the materials of production as well as 
to the methods. The character of the materials 
necessarily conditions the mode of procedure. The 
materials are animate, dynamic, vibrant — young- 
people who dream and who dare, and the methods 
employed must conform to these characteristics. 
Colleges and graduate schools may concern them- 
selves with the production of specialists, but the 
high school has a different function. It concerns 
itself with life in its elemental phase and not with 
its differentiations and refinements. 

Training implies vitality and growth. In train- 
ing a plant we merely give direction and provide 
conditions favorable to its growth with no thought 
of abridging or impeding that growth. So, like- 
wise, with high-school pupils. The mode of pro- 
cedure is intended to give direction to their virile 
qualities and growth and, in no sense, to thwart 
or impede them. The best the school can do for 
them is to establish tendencies. These tendencies 
ultimately groove into habits and these, in turn, 
become their standards of activity and conduct, 
which, by a natural process, become assets of the 
community. 

Materials of production. — These materials of pro- 
duction, the boys and girls of the high school, we 
must accept as we find them and, in the main, at 
their own valuation. This is the crucial test of 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 155 

the school and of the teacher. Too often we seek 
to measure our pupils by adult standards and 
criticise or condemn accordingly. In too many 
cases, ^^ aptitude for vicariousness" seems unable 
to survive the flight of time and what was once 
orthodoxy to the teacher soon assumes the aspect 
of heterodoxy. At high-school functions, some 
teachers seem quite unable or unwilling to enter 
into the spirit of the occasion in co-ordination with 
the pupils but detach themselves from the exercises 
and look unutterably bored. Others are made con- 
spicuous by their absence. These indications point 
pretty conclusively to the fact that such teachers 
are not in full sympathy with adolescence and so 
lack somewhat of the equipment necessary for 
leadership. 

If, with our experience, we cannot enter into the 
feelings of youth, we can scarce expect them, lack- 
ing our experience, to enter into the feelings of 
adult life. If we cannot fraternize with them in 
the social phases of school life, we need not be 
surprised if they hold aloof from us in the class- 
room. We must come to their plane of life before 
they can or will come to ours. If we cannot or 
will not enter into their lives, they will be reluctant 
to accept either our definitions or our standards 
of life. 

If our kind of teaching alienates us from our 
pupils, then we should adopt other methods or else 



156 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

discontinue teaching altogether nntil, in some way, 
we shall have regained the ability to affiliate with 
them. Otherwise, our teaching will be ^^as sound- 
ing brass, or a tinkling cymbal," and they will 
certainly repudiate it as spurious. If, to illustrate, 
the high-school boy has an aversion to science the 
scientific knowledge of the teacher will repel rather 
than attract him, and the teacher must be at some 
pains to demonstrate to this boy that he is a man 
in spite of his knowledge of science. In short, 
science will become attractive to this boy only 
when the personal qualities of the teacher have 
glorified the subject. 

Disadvantages of over-specialization. — What the 
teacher himself may regard as the hall-mark of 
superiority the boy may look upon as a badge of 
inferiority. This simple fact is, at times, the cause 
and occasion of disquietude. The specialist becomes 
so enamored of and engrossed in his specialty that 
he fails to gain the point of view of his pupils 
and condemns them if they fail to share his enthu- 
siasm. The success of teaching is measured by the 
pupirs enthusiasm and not by the teacher's; and 
yet this seems to be the last thing that some teach- 
ers learn. Herein lies the disadvantage and dan- 
ger of specialization. The interests of high-school 
pupils must ever be paramount, a fact that is some- 
times lost sight of in the teacher's absorption in 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 157 

liis subject. He seems to have a predilection for 
his subject rather than for boys and girls. 

Such a teacher may claim that all his work is 
done in the interests of the pupils. This is true 
in theory but it does not work out in practice for 
the reason that he views the subject from his own 
angle and not from theirs. He looks at the subject 
through his own special glasses and not through 
theirs. While he is making ready to do things, 
they are doing things and what they are doing may 
have led them far afield from his subject before 
he is ready. The specialist is apt to be historical 
instead of prophetic. If he is looking backward 
while they are looking forward there is a situation 
of disharmony that is not good for the school. His 
work must attach itself to their life in the imme- 
diate present with no slightest hint of pedagogical 
feudalism. 

Pupils the teacher's first consideration.^There 
is always the danger, in the case of the specialist, 
that he may be more intent upon developing the 
subject by means of his pupils than in developing 
the pupils by means of his subject. In such a 
case, the pupils and the school appliances belong 
in the same category; they are merely a means to 
an end. Such a procedure reduces pupils to the 
role of pawns on the chess-board and they resent 
the disfranchisement of their initiative and the 



158 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

confiscation of tlieir achievements. Tliey want 
their work to redound to their own glory and not 
merely to the glory of the teacher or to the success 
of his experiment. They are never specially inter- 
ested in contributing to or exploiting the exu- 
berance of the teacher. If they shake the tree they 
want some of the fruit. 

The gist of the whole matter is that the pupils 
and their interests should come first in the scheme. 
Teacher and pupil should march forward, side by 
side, to storm the citadel, and, when the white flag 
shows upon the battlements, the cheering should 
be a chorus and not a teacher's solo. The teacher's 
work is to inoculate the spirit of his pupils with 
the virus of his subject that this subject may 
become a part of their social consciousness and so 
become a pervasive influence in the larger democ- 
racy. 

Another danger of specialization is its tendency 
to elaboration and technicalities. High-school 
pupils do not travel, either physically or mentally, 
with mincing steps, but go forward in sweeping 
movements. Hence it is that nice distinctions and 
hair-splitting technicalities are irksome to them. 
They wonder how any one can higgle over a geni- 
tive of description when it is high time for the ball- 
game. They have a feeling of compassion for the 
teacher whose only source of fun in life seems to 
them to be the contemplation of double datives. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 159 

When the teacher tells them of the scholar who on 
his death-bed said that if he had his life to live 
over he would devote it all to the dative case, they 
give small heed to the statement save only to brand 
it as either false or foolish. 

The un-socialized specialist. — The ultra-specialist 
in a high school is a pathetic figure. His habitat 
is the large high school. Life would be intolerable 
to him elsewhere. He regards the time devoted to 
other subjects than his own as an interference with 
his plans. Why, pray, should they study other 
subjects at all? He seems to feel sorry for the 
other teachers that they can find nothing better to 
do than to teach their particular subjects. Ma- 
rooned on his one subject he heeds not the pulsing 
life of the school all about him. He has no interest 
in or connection with any of the extra-school activi- 
ties that give scope for the ingenuity and fine initia- 
tive of the enterprising pupils. He simply does not 
know the pupils and, were all the teachers such as 
he, they would wreck the school in a day. When 
the school paper is issued he seems to think that 
it simply happened. He does not know that other 
teachers of the corps are working for many weary 
hours over time to cause such things to happen. 
If he had a sense of humor he would need only to 
look at himself as others see him to explode with 
laughter. 

If a class in another subject were sent to his 



160 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

room for a recitation he would sit dazed and help- 
less. And yet this teacher is a college graduate 
and has run the gamut of all high-school studies, 
and now can teach but one. One such teacher, who 
had been teaching Latin for many years, resigned 
rather than take classes in geometry. He had 
simply become atrophied under the influence of 
his tread-mill existence, and had lost the power 
of readjustment. Had there been a change of sub- 
jects ten years earlier it had been better for him 
and for the school. It is beginning to dawn upon 
many thoughtful high-school principals that, per- 
haps, a change of subjects for the teachers is the 
means for the inauguration of reformation in their 
schools. The chief and insistent desideratum is 
that all high-school teachers shall be specialists in 
the subject of boys and girls and that their subjects 
shall be subsidiary to this principle and made con- 
tributory factors in the sublime alchemy of trans- 
muting boys and girls into high-minded and effec- 
tive men and women. When this comes to pass, 
all subjects and all school activities will be merged 
in a common purpose, the teachers will be unified 
upon the plane of this common purpose, and the 
pupils will be the beneficiaries. All teachers will 
then be specialists in English for the very sufficient 
reason that they will yearn to have the boys and 
girls become proficient in the use of the language, 
not alone for scholarship, but, also, for citizenship. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 161 

The sabbatical year. — It is hoped that the time 
may soon come when the sabbatical year will 
be an established fact in our school policy and 
practice. Such a practice will contribute to the 
well-being of the schools as well as of the teachers. 
When that time comes it is no less ardently hoped 
that many high-school teachers who are now such 
devoted worshipers of their specialties may deem 
it both wise and expedient to detach themselves 
from academic concerns for the entire year and 
devote the time to people instead of subjects. 

Such teachers will do well to espouse some form 
of settlement work during their year of vacation. 
There they will discern the heart-beats of real life 
and learn many lessons that will stand them in 
good stead in their subsequent dealings with young 
people. They may not win so many degrees but 
they will make large gains in altruism, in ^ ^ aptitude 
for vicariousness, ' ^ in a profounder sympathy with 
humanity, in spiritual and mental reach, and in 
the qualities that make for leadership. 



CHAPTER XIV 
EXAMINATIONS 

The question-and-answer method. — So long as the 
question-and-answer method obtams as the major 
feature of the class-exercise so long may we expect 
this same method to be prevalent in examinations. 
The teacher who conceives education to be a barter- 
ing of questions for answers will not easily or 
readily become detached from this conception when 
the time for examination recurs. He may have 
read that this method is archaic, that it smacks of 
medievalism or, possibly, of ecclesiasticism, or that 
it is not in consonance with the later developments 
in the educative process, but, none the less, he con- 
tinues to use the method in his practice for the 
reason that it is a habit of thinking with him and 
such habits are not easily eradicated. 

He argues that this method has been tested by 
years or centuries of experience and that such is 
the final test of all mundane things, thinking, 
apparently, that whatever is is right. The fallacy 
of his arguments lies in the fact that it excludes 
the possibility of any other method. Time has 
tested the efficacy of the sickle in the successful 

162 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 163 

harvesting of grain until now this implement is 
invested with well-nigh poetic significance; but, 
in spite of this, the modern harvester has pre- 
empted the grain-field. We may extol the sickle 
for its achievements but we supplant it with a 
better means of harvesting the grain. Tradition 
is unavailing in a harvest-field. 

Since this method has grooved into a habit of 
thought any deviation from this mode of procedure 
will produce a wrench in the minds of superin- 
tendents, principals, teachers, and others who are 
charged with the work of examining. But, if there 
is a better plan, then it were better for these exam- 
iners to suffer a wrench than for the schools to be 
deprived of the advantages of the better plan. In 
educational matters, our practices often lag behind 
our theories and this is conspicuously true in the 
matter of examinations. 

The method abrogates the teachings of psychol- 
ogy. — The theory, as enunciated by profound schol- 
arship, is that the work of the school should attach 
itself to the native dispositions of the pupils; but 
our method of examinations would seem to depart 
widely from this theory. Indeed, the examiner 
often does violence to the theory by his method 
of testing for a knowledge of the theory in the 
examination. 

The conception of the high school assumes agree- 
able and profitable occupation for every member 



164 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

of the organism. The activities of all members 
should be adapted to their powers, aptitudes, and 
inclinations. Every individual should be busy 
with tasks that will make the most of his individ- 
uality and enable him to make the largest possible 
contribution to the well-being of the school as a 
whole. What the school can do for the pupil is 
measured by what it can help him to do for him- 
self and for the school. In the school there is a 
wide diversity of capacities and interests and there 
needs to be a strict assessment of values in respect 
of all these in order to secure a harmonious and 
unified blending of all these elements as contribut- 
ing factors in school progress. 

The high school is a constructive agency. In 
its primary purpose we find a previsioning and a 
predetermining of better things to come both for 
each individual and for the school itself. By pro- 
moting the growth of each pupil it strives to pro- 
mote its own growth and efficiency. To this end 
it would utilize, to the full, all the possibilities of 
each individual. It would aiford full scope for 
right expression on the part of each individual 
and so justify itself as a working democracy. 

Synthesis in examinations. — Seeing, then, that the 
school is synthetic, in its very nature and purpose, 
as has been somewhat fully set out in a preceding 
chapter, every activity should be based upon this 
fundamental conception. The pupils are so spa- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 165 

cious in their tastes and so omnivorious in their 
desires that they are especially susceptible to syn- 
thetic influences. The resiliency and adaptability 
of their natures render them innately averse to 
the fixed, the formal, and the stereotyped. Pupils 
have a right to freedom and joy in the performance 
of proper tasks. The blacksmith, the carpenter, 
the farmer, and the house-wife, in the larger democ- 
racy, sing as they do their work because their work 
is constructive and gives opportunity for self- 
expression. 

Consideration of the examination as a phase of 
the school regime affords a large opportunity for 
casuistry. Teachers are not, as yet, fully agreed as 
to the objective purpose of the formal examination. 
Some seem to regard it as a sacrosanct institution, 
that has been handed down by the educational 
Fathers and is, therefore, immutable and inviolable. 
Others, with lofty insouciance, esteem it an expo- 
nent of tyranny. The pupils, themselves, very often 
regard it as a species of bullying on the part of a 
capricious teacher. 

The examination as a penalizing process. — There 
are teachers who advocate the examination in their 
own interests. Their claim is that it affords them 
protection against the charges of prejudice, favorit- 
ism, and injustice; but this view seems to beg the 
question entirely. If no better warrant for its 
existence than this can be adduced, then the sooner 



166 THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 

it is banished the better. ■ No activity of the school 
is to be tolerated if it benefits only the teacher. 
In some schools, the examination, in its present 
form, is a sort of penalizing ordeal serving to make 
unpleasantly conspicuous many pupils who are 
already discouraged almost to the breaking point. 

Discouragement is a baneful influence and is 
ever to be deplored. To obviate discouragement 
is a task that is worthy the best efforts of the 
teacher and the school. The plan in vogue in many 
schools of excusing pupils from examination as a 
reward for fidelity and diligence is based upon the 
agreeable assumption that all pupils are equally 
responsible for results because of equal endowments 
and equal opportunities. Over against this assump- 
tion is the grim fact that they are not all equally 
endowed and, because of this fact, have not had 
equal opportunities. Some of these may not have 
understood the teaching but were too timid to 
reveal this fact; others may have received too 
scant attention in the class-exercises; and others 
may have been handicapped by some physical 
infirmity. Their opportunities are not equal simply 
because they all sit in the same room. 

Did the plan not carry the implication of penal- 
izing the pupils of these classes, it might not seem 
so subversive of the principle of democracy. But 
those who are not thus excused cannot rid them- 
selves of the notion that they are the victims of 



THE HIGH ICHOOL PROBLEM 167 

invidious class distinctions and become discouraged 
and resentful accordingly. It would seem possible 
to devise some plan by which the democratic prin- *^ 
ciple would be conserved; by which every pupil 
could be tested as to all the elements that consti- 
tute effective effort; and, at the same time, preserve 
the equanimity of every pupil and give him a 
hopeful view of the entire school situation. If 
the pupil sits in the examination in a sort of 
spiritual straight-jacket his work w^ill not sIioav 
forth that expansiveness and bouyancy of spirit 
that should characterize all high-school activities. 
Their very looks, in such an ordeal, are enough to 
discourage the continuance of the plan. These 
pupils are not sullen by nature, quite the reverse. 
So it seems evident that some one has failed to 
attach this particular school activity to their native 
tendencies. 

Stereotyped examinations. — Again, it is to be 
noted that the proverbial ten questions that appear 
upon the blackboard may represent the personal 
bias of the teacher. To the teacher they may seem 
altogether pertinent and clear; but, to the pupil, 
they may seem technical, ambiguous, or irrelevant. 
But there they are as inflexible as adamant and 
the pupil has no choice but to take them or leave 
them, while the sword of Damocles hangs suspended 
above his head. In such a situation truth does not 
present to the boy a specially alluring mien. In- 



168 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

stead of a flower-bordered pathway that leads to 
realms of delight, it seems to him a sort of back- 
alley escape from Tophet. He is even sufficiently 
adventurous to hazard a guess as to what is in the 
teacher's mind in the hope of averting unpleasant 
consequences. 

Such a procedure seems to be an attempt, futile 
though it may be, to reduce all pupils to the stand- 
ards of the teacher, with little or no recognition of 
their individual qualities or native tendencies. A 
hundred questions might be asked, but the pupils 
are limited to these ten and no options permitted. 
The ten questions, moreover, may be dictated by 
the personal bias or native dispositions of the 
teacher. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that 
many thoughtful teachers find this method some- 
what repellant and will cordially welcome a more 
humane plan that will conserve the interests of 
pupils and, at the same time, exemplify modern 
educational theories. 

Another definition of education evolved. — If we 
subscribe to the dictum that education is the 
process of fitting the individual for effectual rela- 
tions with his environment, we have, at once, a 
guiding principle for all plans that relate to school 
work, including the examination. Every study 
pursued is a part of the pupil's environment and, 
if we hope to make his relations to the study more 
effectual by means of the examination, then, in the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 169 

nature of the situation, the examination must artic- 
ulate itself with his native interests and thus help 
to accentuate his individuality. Such a plan 
enables him to body forth his accumulated knowl- 
edge of the subject and this, in turn, gives an 
impulse and an impetus for further investigation. 
In short, this sort of expression reinforces and 
deepens his impressions, and, in consequence, his 
relations with the subject are far more effectual by 
reason of the examination. Every examination 
should be of such a character that it will increase 
the pupil's interest in the study. 

It seems altogether feasible to evolve a plan of 
examination that will attach itself readily to the 
pupil's native instincts, give scope for the exercise 
of his initiative, afford free range for his ingenuity, 
promote the development of his individuality, test 
his general intelligence, smile approval upon his 
resourcefulness, and give full recognition to his 
powers of synthesis. Such a plan will make a 
strong' appeal to the pupil. He enjoys a contest if 
he is permitted to use his own weapons and contend 
on his own ground. He is quite willing to have his 
mettle and his prowess tested if only he has a voice 
in promulgating the rules of the game. But he 
instinctively balks at the role of a mercenary. In 
his own armor and his own territory he deems him- 
self fully equipped to take a fall out of the world, 
including his present environment. He yearns to 



170 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

achieve and thinks it some what inglorious merely 
to escape penalty. 

Short-sighted examiners. — Teachers, both in the 
college and in the high school, have been known to 
indulge in something akin to exultation over the 
large number of failures in their examinations, not 
realizing, apparently, that these failures were a 
grave reflection upon the character of their teach- 
ing and, also upon their examinations. In theory, 
the examination is prepared for the average pupil, 
but since there is no average pupil, the theory falls 
to the ground. It is quite impossible to average 
people. There are differences in ability among 
pupils, to be sure, but the school is not organized 
upon the principle of the survival of the fittest 
however strongly the prevailing type of examina- 
tion may suggest such a conception. Rather, the 
school is organized to give to every pupil the 
highest possible degree of fitness in some activity 
that will promote the well-being of society through 
him. There should be no burying of even the one 
talent under any melange of school theories or 
practices. Sad, indeed, is it to see a pupil pushed 
over the clitf and the teacher smiling at his 
discomfiture. 

Modification of the formal examination. — If the 
formal examination is the only plan, or even the 
best plan, by which to assess the achicA^ements of 
the pupils and to estimate their progress in as well 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 171 

as their attitude toward any given study, some 
method is certainly possible that will afford oppor- 
tunity to every pupil to display the maximum of 
his capabilities; and more than this wisdom does 
not ask. There is no common standard by which 
to grade either members of the community or 
pupils in the school. If the blacksmith, the physi- 
cian, the minister, the farmer, or the pupil is doing 
worthy work and is making progress he should be 
commended for his efforts and given a hearty God- 
speed. The purist and the technician will look 
askance at any such method, of course; but we can 
better atford to do violence to the stereotyped preju- 
dices of such as these than to the best interests of 
the pupils. 

Synthetic examinations. — If the synthetic were to 
supplant the analytic in examinations, they would 
lose something of their terrors and be all the better 
for the loss. Instead of asking pupils to solve prob- 
lems in an examination in algebra, we can ask them 
to formulate a given number of problems embodying 
the principles we are reviewing. Such an exercise 
will test their progress in the subject quite as 
effectively as the solution of problems and they 
will have larger freedom and bouyancy in the 
process because it gives opportunity for the exer- 
cise of their initiative and constructive tendencies. 
It appeals to them as a fascinating game rather than 
a task, for the very good reason that they are 



172 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

largely planning their own work and working out 
their own plans. The grading of papers will not 
be so easy, bnt no real teacher ever consults his 
own ease when the interests of his pupils are at 
stake. 

This same general method applies with equal 
force and facility to other studies. In the work 
in literature, whether poem or play, we can readily 
discover their preferences as to characters, and 
scenes, their feeling for poetic expressions, char- 
acters discernment, rare epigrams, beautiful fig- 
ures, and words of special significance. In short, 
we can cause them to discover themselves to us 
through the medium of the poem or play and, at 
the same time, give them an encouraging impulse 
toward further and even more intensive study of 
the production. 

Memory tests. — It is to be deplored that exami- 
nations in history test merely for memory, and not 
for judgment, attitudes of mind, personal prefer- 
ences, and breadth of historic outlook. Indeed, 
teachers of history, as a rule, are constantly enjoin- 
ing their pupils to remember facts and dates against 
the time of examination. Such teaching would 
seem to demand the services either of a physician 
or a chaplain. We should encourage our pupils to, 
know their history and not merely remember, and 
so use it as unconsciously as they do their hands. 
The examination can then test for usable knowl- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 173 

edge, for their estimate of events as to tlieir bear- 
ing upon civilization, and their preferences among 
presidents, statesmen, leaders in war or peace, 
inventors, benefactors, and writers — with reasons 
for their preferences. Such an examination does 
not depress, but, rather stimulates. 

We shall not attain to this higher plan of rational 
examinations in the schools until those who are 
charged with the responsibility of examining teach- 
ers shall have blazed the way and shown the teach- 
ers how it can be done. If these agencies will but 
shift from the analytic to the synthetic method 
this plan will soon take its place in the practices 
of the schools. 



CHAPTER XV 
SCHOOL ACTIVITIES 

Restatement of meaning of studies. — In the high- 
school democracy the studies are the nucleus and 
the nexus around which and by which the members 
of the organism are conjoined. These studies form 
the common plane upon which the pupils live 
together as members of the community and the 
common interest that animates and unites them. 
But, important as these studies are, they are not to 
be invested with that paramount importance that 
extremists would attach to them. They are chiefly 
useful in affording a basis for effective living 
during the high-school period. 

At best, these studies can be but beginnings, 
while the years the pupils spend together in the 
school are integers of real life. No one can effect- 
ually claim that the high school produces histor- 
ians, linguists, scientists, artists, or mathematicians. 
It does establish tendencies in these directions and 
it does stimulate aspirations toward these various 
goals, but it does not give forth finished products. 
In its primary function the high school is a labora- 
tory of citizenship and only incidentally of scholar- 

174 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 175 

ship. We expect our pupils to work at their tasks 
with diligence and fidelity for such work is the 
hall-mark of good citizenship. 

Knowledge is not power.— In a word, if by some 
fiat, all the facts of the books conld be transfused 
into the minds of the pupils, it would avail but 
little, for, as the poet says, ''the deed is outdone 
by the doing." The studies are the warp and 
woof of the school regime whereas the life of the 
school forms the woven pattern, and this pattern 
is the real exponent of the school life. If, as we 
are told, pupils learn to do by doing, it is cer- 
tainly emphatically true that they learn to live 
by living, and, so, the life of the school becomes 
of first importance. 

In this view, what they do becomes less import- 
ant than that they be kept busy in activities that 
serve to promote the well-being of the school. In 
brief, it were better for the pupils that their mere 
scholastic attainments should be deleted at the close 
of the school period than that their gains in the 
art of living should be eliminated. Their life in 
the school is of more value to them and to society 
than the mere acquisition of knowledge could pos- 
sibly be apart from their school life. This view 
will not receive the ready sanction of the strict 
constructionists who regard the class-room work 
and its allied activities as the all-in-all of the 
school regime, and all else as extraneous or incon- 



176 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

sequentiaL But the time must come when teachers 
and parents will be emancipated from this restricted 
conception of the high school, and will see in it 
a time and an occasion for utilizing all the resources 
of every pupil to the end that life for each pupil 
during the high school period may be on a higher 
plane and more abundant. 

Another poet has said that ''life is more than 
fruit or grain'' and yet, in spite of the poet, we 
are wont to lay emphasis upon the fruit and grain 
as represented by the mechanical and academic 
phases of the school work. A bit of introspection 
might readily bring to mind the words of Scripture, 
''Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and 
have omitted the weightier matters of law, judg- 
ment, mercy, and faith; these ought ye to have 
done, and not to leave the other undone." Many 
teachers applaud the oft-quoted statement that 
school is life and not a mere preparation and then, 
in their practice, do their utmost to prove the 
statement wrong. If we are to make the school a 
coherent and homogeneous whole, we must make 
our practice square with our theory that the pri- 
mary function of the high school is to produce 
citizens and not mental acrobats. 

Pupils learn from one another. — Without fear of 
successful contradiction, it may be said that pupils 
learn more from one another in the things that 
make for successful living than they learn from 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 177 

tlieir teachers and studies combined. We, as 
teachers, would like to indulge in the flattering 
unction that we are quite indispensable and that, 
without us, there would be no learning; but philos- 
ophy, pedagogy, and the facts all oppose this view. 
The teacher is mainly useful in creating situations 
and, in this work, is of far-reaching importance; 
but many teachers need to revise their notions as 
to their own importance in the way of generating 
and fostering the wholesome life of the school. The 
pupils, themselves, do that, in the main, and very 
often in spite of their teachers. 

The school, therefore, is the melting-pot in which 
are fused all the constituent elements of healthy 
and healthful life in the organism. This view must 
obtain before we can evaluate, with nice and just 
discrimination, the various and varied activities of 
the school. If we but had the wisdom and the per- 
spicacity to determine what things are major and 
what minor in all that makes for right living in 
the school we would probably find it necessary to 
reconstruct and readjust many of our plans and 
policies. The teacher of algebra, to illustrate, 
would fain believe that his study is one of the bed- 
rock fundamentals and would scarce be able to 
conceal his impatience at any suggestion to the 
contrary. His proximity to his study renders him 
incapable of seeing it in perspective. He is merely 
myopic and what seems major to the pupils may 



178 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

seem to liim either minor, or negligible, or, at best, 
irrelevant. 

The larger view of school work. — In such a cir- 
cumscribed view of the school order there is no 
clear, far-reaching, and intelligent concern in the 
great sequence of events which avail in the produc- 
tion of efficient citizens. Such a teacher finds his 
counterpart in the worker in the factory who makes 
but a single part, knowing and caring but little for 
the product complete. The jaded palate can not 
make fine assessments of delicate flavors, nor can 
the jaded and biased specialist estimate, at their full 
value, the many unacademic activities in their 
influence upon the life of the school. 

If the boy can find and readjust himself more 
readily in the school orchestra than in the class in 
algebra then, so far as the effectual relations of 
that boy to the school are concerned, the orchestra 
is of more value,. for the time being, than the alge- 
bra, even though the teacher may look upon the 
orchestra as a minor or an incidental phase of the 
school. We have only to consult our own exper- 
iences to realize how often the incidental has come 
to take a major place in the scheme of life. Indeed, 
if we should tabulate the experiences in our lives 
that have made the most lasting impressions, we 
would find the list made up largely of incidentals. 

A boy, who was irritated almost to the breaking 
point, by the exactions of the regular school routine, 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 179 

was found to have decided aptitude for drawing 
and, by means of that activity, was won back to 
complete harmony with the other studies, his teach- 
ers, and the schooL Hence drawing became, for 
the nonce, to that boy the most important study 
of the curriculum, because it led to his redemption 
and restored him to the plane of harmonious liv- 
ing. In like manner any one of the many school 
activities may assume a major position in promot- 
ing the well-being of the school, and wise is that 
teacher who can use these activities to that end. 

School athletics.— Rightly conducted athletics 
may be made to serve a useful purpose but there 
is deep concern on the part of school officials 
as to what constitutes the right conduct of this 
activity. Many expedients have been resorted to 
in an etfort to solve the problem, but no very satis- 
factory solution has been found. Certain it is 
that many abuses have militated against high-school 
athletics as an effective agency in promoting the 
highest interests of the school. Nor can all school 
officials be held blameless in the matter. The win- 
at-any-cost pressure has been too great for some of 
them and they have compromised with their inner 
convictions. Living up to the letter of athletic 
rules and regulations they have, none the less, 
through some ruse or subterfuge violated their 
spirit. 

Some schools support a player, in whole or in 



180 THE man school problem 

part, ostensibly to afford him the privileges of the 
school but, in reality, because he is an effective 
athlete and helps to win the games. If, through 
any cause, the expertness of this player should 
suddenly wane the altruism of the school would 
probably evaporate. Such a situation is both fat- 
uous and farcical. The opposing team fully appre- 
ciates the exact status of this player and discredits 
the moral standards of the school that supports him. 

According to athletic rules pupils must attain 
so-called passing grades as a prerequisite for par- 
ticipating in the game, and teachers are often sub- 
jected to intense pressure from sources both inside 
and outside the school. Some yield to this pressure 
and those who do not are often made to feel 
that they have been guilty of disloyalty to the 
school. In many instances, it may be averred, 
the good player has received the benefit of the 
doubt. Moral standards are often prostituted to 
mercenary considerations and the anxiety to win 
has its source in questionable commercial trans- 
actions. In regard to the moral phase of athletics 
in many high schools, there seems to be a tacit 
understanding that the less said the better. 

The ethics of athletics. — Coaches are subsidized 
under the specious pretext of increased salary for 
increased work. But many regular teachers devote 
quite as many extra hours to their work as the 
coach, and no mention made of an increase of salary. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 181 

Moreover, tribute is levied upon these teachers 
in support of the team and woe betide the one who 
has the temerity to refuse. Such a teacher becomes 
the victim of unsavory epithets if not of ostracism. 
We are frequently reminded that Waterloo was 
won at Eton with the implied assumption that 
Waterloo was a necessity. If we were attempting 
to prove that, in our athletic activities, the end 
justifies the means, the Waterloo illustration would 
hardly pass muster, especially at a peace confer- 
ence. It would be far more pertinent to inquire 
whether the activities on the athletic field have 
had the eifect of larger yields of corn and wheat 
on the farm. 

Over the assemblage of athletic trophies that 
adorn (or disfigure) many a high school we might 
well erect the motto Cui Bono — to what good? 
Is the game worth the candle? Are we getting 
value received for the great expenditure of time 
and vitality? Is the tone of living in the high 
school elevated by athletics? Are the young people 
better and more efficient citizens because of their 
athletic activities? Do the athletics of the school 
promote the physical well-being of all pupils or 
only of few ? Does the strenuous life of the athletic 
field jeopardize the health of any of the partici- 
pants? Are wise precautions taken to see to it 
that only the physically fit are permitted to enter 
the contests? 



182 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

These questions are propounded, not in any criti- 
cal spirit, but in an effort to discover, if possible, 
the merits and demerits of the entire athletic situa- 
tion. The subject is a perplexing one and all the 
more so because athletic contests are so deeply 
enmeshed in the social consciousness, that the school 
official who would propose to annul high-school 
athletics would find himself going counter to public 
sentiment. If there were any inclination to inveigh 
against athletics as one of the conspicuous school 
activities, it were easy to produce a formidable 
array of facts and figures portraying accidents, 
broken bodies, and deaths. However, all that is 
sought in this connection is to bring forward the 
case for adjudication. 

Physical training. — A somewhat recent issue of 
The Journal of the American Medical Association 
has an article which bears upon the general subject 
as follows: 

' ' We are glad to note a spirit of protest in various 
parts of the United States against all forces, social 
and athletic, which tend to deteriorate the Ameri- 
can boy (or girl) at the adolescent age of the high- 
school period. One health officer has recently made 
a public announcement that proper exercise in a 
well-equipped gymnasium, under the guidance of a 
trained instructor, is good for one, but that competi- 
tive athletics, requiring most strenuous exertion, 
long and tedious training, and self-denial, is posi- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 183 

tively bad for any one before full development, and 
that all such overacts tend to impair the keenness 
of the mind and interfere with school work proper, 
as well as to injure the body. The competitive 
interscholastic games which require great physical 
exertion and mental tension should be done away 
with and a good gymnasium, under the direction of 
one trained in physical culture, should be provided 
and work according to the condition and need of 
each pupil assigned. We agree, further, that mild 
and well-timed athletic exercise and occasional 
social functions will tend to relieve the monotony 
of school life and invigorate body and mind; but 
over-indulgence is likely to be detrimental. ' ' 

If athletic sports, as now conducted, are inimi- 
cal to the welfare of the school, then the wisdom 
and patriotism of all officials and friends of the 
school should combine in an effort to bring about 
such modifications and restrictions as will safeguard 
the school interests. Nothing should be counte- 
nanced or tolerated that tends to vitiate the life- 
currents of the school, for what the life of the 
school is the life of the larger democracy will be 
when these pupils take their places as factors in 
its activities. 

Other activities. — There are many other activi- 
ties which the school may nurture with profit 
because they attach themselves readily to the apti- 
tudes and inclinations of the pupils and so become 



184 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

vitalizing agencies in the school life. Some of these 
are of wider scope than athletics even though they 
may not have received such conspicuous recogni- 
tion. These may be made to pay large dividends 
upon the time and effort expended by the teachers 
in fostering them. Pupils of high-school age are 
acutel}^ sensitive to suggestions and readily init- 
iate new movements if only the credit for the inno- 
vation accrues to themselves. They are zealous, 
energetic, and tireless in executing plans that ema- 
nate from their own thinking. All they need is 
a mere suggestion and their invention is broad 
awake. 

Such being the case, the teacher's opportunities 
for stimulating the right sort of school activities 
are essentially unlimited. To do this with success 
requires a high order of leadership. This sort of 
leadership is never obtrusive, never mandatory, but 
always kindly and persuasive. The real leader never 
arrogates to himself superior knowledge or wisdom 
but ever seems to be seeking light. Such a leader 
never exhibits impatience or petulance but, with 
fine mental dexterity, edges about among possibili- 
ties until the end is gained and then firmly dis- 
claims any credit for the achievement. Such lead- 
ership merely reveals to the pupils their own apti- 
tudes and possibilities, but does it with such tact 
and delicacy that they are made to feel that the 
discoveries are their own. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 185 

Musical organizations. — The supreme achieve- 
ments of snch a leader are compassed by indirection. 
For example, she qnietly wonders, in the presence 
of a group of pupils, as if the suggestion had just 
occurred to her, whether there are enough pupils 
in the school who sing to form a glee club, and, 
then, continues her work as if the glee club idea 
had been but a fleeting phantom. But, within the 
hour, she receives a list of the singers of the 
school with their classification and the glee club 
soon is an established fact — with all the credit of 
its organization belonging to the pupils. Further- 
more, since the glee club came into being at their 
behest, they will see to it that it does not decline. 
In the same unostentatious way, this teacher pro- 
vides a place on some program for the singers and 
so furnishes an incentive for increased zeal and 
perseverance. 

Taking their cue from the glee club, other 
pupils organize a mandolin club or an orchesta and 
so the quiet suggestion of the teacher continues to 
ramify. A generous rivalry is the natural result 
of the duplication of musical organizations and all 
members become assiduous in their desire to excel. 
With such wholesome activities forward in the 
school, the chances for vandalism and insubordina- 
tion grow increasingly fewer, for the adolescent 
energy is flowing forth into better channels. Nor 
has the teacher any occasion for apprehension as 



186 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

to any abatement of fidelity to regular tasks. On 
the contrary, the deeper the interest in any one 
phase of school life, the deeper the interest in the 
general welfare of the school. 

The resourceful teacher. — Intelligent directing of 
school activities presupposes a somewhat intimate 
knowledge by the teacher of the aptitudes and 
native dispositions of the pupils, but the teacher 
who is so wholly immersed in his own subject as 
to be oblivious to the heart-beats of the school will 
not sense these aptitudes and tendencies and so is 
not competent to stimulate such activities. If a 
bird club is desirable, the pupils who are leaders 
in the way of bird lore will form the nucleus of the 
club and effect the organization. A dramatic club 
can be evolved in like fashion, but the teacher must 
first discover what pupils have dramatic inclina- 
tions. In some schools such aptitudes have remained 
unknown to the teachers for years, and the life of 
the school suffered loss thereby. In one school a 
boy had pronounced musical and dramatic ability 
but the teachers did not make the discovery until 
his final year. 

When such talents are permitted to lie fallow, 
teachers are at fault and the school can not hold 
them blameless. The teacher of art ought to be 
able to discover what pupils are available for a 
sketching club or a camera club. Indeed, it is 
quite within her province to crystallize such talents 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 187 

into a working organization and give inspiring 
direction to the activites, providng stimulating 
incentives. In one large high school there is an 
art club and a majority of the pupils are members. 
Through the activities of this club the school is 
richly adorned with high-grade pictures and the 
pupils have all the glory and joy of achievement. 
The pictures are their pictures, and, therefore, the 
school is their school and not something detached 
from them. 

One school cited. — In one school there is a Ger- 
man club, a French club, and a Spanish club. At 
the regular meetings only the language of the club 
is spoken and the program concerns itself with 
such matters as will give a wider outlook upon 
the civilization of the people whose language forms 
the basis of the club. A Latin club has been known 
to do such intelligent research work as gave sur- 
prise to the teachers. The history club and the 
science club will inevitably reinforce the work of 
the classes and will often discover material that is 
of great value. The magazine club and the cur- 
rent events club render pupils alert and responsive 
to current literature, while the debating club stim- 
ulates excursions into all literatures. Interscholas- 
tic debates are performing a large service for the 
schools in the way of stimulating interest in public 
speaking. 



188 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

School credits for home work commented on. — 

Whatever may be said eitiier for or against the 
plan of giving school credit for home work, it is 
undeniably true that pupils should receive more 
credit for promoting the healthy and happy life 
of the school than for splitting kindling or milking 
cows, however desirable and important those func- 
tions may be. In these personal employments there 
may be some danger of encouraging scholastic men- 
dicancy, but, in these school activities, every pupil 
is working with and in a group whose efforts tend 
to promote the life of the entire school. The apti- 
tudes of all the pupils in their particular lines, 
whether music, debating, art, or nature are 
deposited as assets of the school which thus becomes 
the beneficiary of all their achievements. 

The need for variety. — The resourceful principal 
and teachers will find the pupils ready to respond 
to their suggestions at all times, but they crave 
variety. What they enjoy today may pall upon 
them tomorrow. Life is not static and these young- 
people represent life. Hence the teacher's work in 
connection with school activities is a continuous 
process. If there is a school paper it is not enough 
that one teacher is appointed to act as censor or 
sponsor. The paper will not fitly represent the 
school unless every teacher in the corps displays 
a sympathetic interest in its progress. High-school 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 189 

pupils will brook no patronizing attitude. Hence 
the interest must be genuine. The school paper 
is often the supreme test of the teacher as well as 
of the pupils. 

Community center work. — These activities main- 
taining a vigorous life, community center work in 
the school may become well-nigh automatic. The 
various organizations may be charged with the 
responsibility of furnishing programs for their par- 
ents and friends and they respond with alacrity. 
The high school that is accounted small has versa- 
tility sufficient to give profitable and inspiring pro- 
grams and the entire community will soon come to 
anticipate these evenings with eagerness. In one 
school, such programs brought patrons to the school 
so often that now they need no set programs to lure 
them but come of their own volition. The building 
is open six evenings each week for two and a half 
hours, and hither come business men, professional 
men, and workingmen with their wives and chil- 
dren. They all avail themselves of library and 
reading-room facilities. Some of the men use the 
manual training equipment and the women the sew- 
ing-machines in the domestic science department. 

The social aspect. — This condition is a natural 
outgrowth of wisely directed school activities. 
When once the parents become fully acclimated in 
the building, and are made to feel that it belongs 



190 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

to them, they not only absorb the life of the school 
but also give back to it the best they have in the 
way of support and co-operation. 

This chapter will conclude with a quotation from 
School Science and Mathematics as follows: 

^^Many teachers are of the opinion that they 
have nothing to do toward improving the general 
social condition of the town in which they live 
otherwise than by exercising their influence in the 
class-room, and in the school with which they are 
connected. A mistake is being made by those who 
believe this. The secondary school teacher, espec- 
ially, is eminently well equipped to be able to do 
outside work which will add tone to the general 
standing of the community in which the teacher 
lives. There are many side issues which can be 
indulged in. There are various forms of clubs which 
the teacher might promote, bringing to bear his 
knowledge of the particular subjects which he is 
teaching. Teachers really owe it to the community 
to get busy in some phase of social, charitable, or 
philanthropic work. Many will say that they have 
no time, but for the energetic, live, wide-awake 
instructor there will be plenty of time in which 
to devote some of his knowledge to the betterment 
of the community in which he is living. '^ 



CHAPTER XVI 
SOCIALIZATION 

The term defined. — Socializing school work is the 
process of inoculating the school with the spirit and 
with the constructive interests of the larger democ- 
racy. The agencies in this process are the pupils 
under the sympathetic and intelligent guidance of 
the teachers. The prerequisites for this kind of 
guidance are an alertness in sensing the spirit of 
society and a somewhat comprehensive knowledge 
of its major interests. Through this process the 
relations of the two democracies become reciprocal 
in that there is, through their common interests, 
an interflow of life between them. In brief, the 
social consciousness and the school consciousness 
coalesce and, hence, the school and the community 
come into a fuller realization of the common inter- 
ests that unite and animate them. 

The boy who comes into the school imbued with 
an interest in agriculture may bear back to the 
community, enmeshed in this interest, a knowledge 
of botany, chemistry, geology, physiography, met- 
eorology, and even of Latin. It is quite conceivable 

191 



192 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

that the pupil who has an interest in agriculture 
will find this interest expanding, under the stim- 
ulus of the school, until it shall have compassed 
the reading of the Georgics. One of the chief func- 
tions of the school is to interpret, organize, amplify 
and intensify the constructive interests of society. 
The boy's interest in agriculture is greater and 
more intense when it becomes freighted with a 
knowledge of these related sciences. It will bear 
repeating many times that effective teaching begins 
with the pupil's knowledge and not with his ignor- 
ance. We need to remind ourselves constantly that 
real teaching attaches itself to the pupil's native 
interests. The teacher's large problem is to discover 
these interests. 

Behind the mask. — Preceding and conditioning 
any substantial progress in making the school social 
there must be concerted and persistent efforts on 
the part of teachers to penetrate the school masks 
that pupils make for themselves, with the aid of 
their teachers, to shield their real selves from too 
close scrutiny. The wearing of these masks seems 
to be a habit, nor will force avail to remove them. 
To account for these masks is a task of no mean 
proportions or significance. Back in the history 
of the school, somewhere, pupils came to look 
ujjon the teacher as an adversary rather than a 
confederate and the conception still persists. Now 
and then the real boy breaks through his mask 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 193 

and reveals liis elemental nature but is brought 
to book so severely for his stark honesty that he 
learns discretion if not wisdom and, thereafter, 
reserves the revelation of his natural self for the 
playground or other places beyond the ken of the 
teacher. He finds it more comfortable to hide 
behind his mask than to become subject to the 
teacher's unsympathetic attitude toward his real 
self. 

The real pupiL — Strange as it may seem, it is 
still lamentably true that many teachers are 
attempting to teach idealized or mythical pupils 
instead of real ones for the simple reason that they 
do not know how to find the real ones. Such 
teachers read of Jeykll and Hyde but seem not to 
know that the story has emphatic exemplification 
in their own class-rooms. If they could but lure 
their pupils out from behind their masks and see 
them as they are the teaching would take on a 
different cast. The boy knows whether it is Dr. 
Jekyll or Mr. Hyde who is sitting in the class 
and smiles at the teacher's complacent ignorance 
of the fact that he is capable of a dual role. He 
discovers himself to the teacher only when he 
feels that it is safe to do so — only when he feels 
that the discovery will not produce discomfort. In 
the presence of the teacher whose unit of school 
work is the class and not the individual, he is quite 
willing to merge his individuality in the group and 



194 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

lose his identity as an individnaL This he does 
solely on the score of comfort. 

Work with the individual. — A very competent 
and successful principal says his chief difficulty is to 
induce teachers to make a careful and sympathetic 
study of individual pupils. He says, further, that 
he is often unable to determine whether teachers 
are unable, or unwilling, to make this kind of close 
study. Certain it is that teachers have departed 
from his school at the end of their first year because 
of failure in this respect. This principal is emphatic 
in his assertion that a knowledge of pupils as 
individuals is fundamental, that teaching is a 
retail process and not wholesale. Whenever the 
teacher realizes that the boy in front of her is a 
person and not merely an object she has made a 
long stride forward towards success in teaching. 
The teacher who does not note the absence of a 
pupil until she has scanned the class-roll evidently 
regards pupils as objects and not persons. A per- 
son would certainly be missed from the class 
without the aid of machinery. 

The pupil a person. — Just as soon as the teacher 
feels the pupil to be a person, so soon does she 
invest him with the constituent attributes of indi- 
viduality and differentiates him from all other mem- 
bers of the group. No longer is he a mere blur 
in her thinking but stands out like a cameo, clear 
in definition, sentient, vital, potent. There is no 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 195 

further need to consult the class-book to discover 
his absence for she misses him as soon as the class 
convenes and his absence produces a poignant 
regret. She had definite plans for him today that 
are frustrated by his absence. Nor is she composed 
until she has discovered the cause of his absence 
with all the accompanying circumstances. She can 
not confuse this pupil with any other for she has 
studied all her pupils with such minute care that 
-they stand wide apart in her thinking and each 
one has distinct and distinctive qualities peculiar 
to himself alone. 

The sympathetic teacher. — The teacher who is 
endowed with such sympathetic interest in her 
pupils as enables her to attain to this close prox- 
imity inevitably gains much information touching 
their individual experiences that stands her in 
good stead in the class-room. They come to know 
that she holds their confidences inviolate and so 
reveal their inner selves to her in the privacy of 
their conferences. Through such intimacies she 
makes discoveries as to their home life, their pov- 
erty or affluence, their diversions, their plans for 
the future, their employment of leisure hours, their 
dominant interests, their relations to churches and 
other institutions, to other families and to individ- 
uals. She learns, in time, what books, magazines, 
and papers are read in their homes, how other mem- 
bers of the family employ their leisure time, their 



196 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

vocations and avocations, and the general attitude 
of the family and neighborhood toward matters 
educational and cultural. 

In a word, the teacher comes to see each pupil 
in the setting of his family and neighborhood envir- 
onment, and, in making these discoveries, she 
approaches more and more closely the real life 
of the pupil. With such knowledge at her com- 
mand she adapts her teaching to individual needs, 
aptitudes, and interests. No longer does she grope 
in the dark, but does all her work in the lucent 
sunshine. She makes her plans for individual needs 
with the same delicate care that the dietitian gives 
to her patients in the hospital. If one boy is espec- 
ially interested in athletics she makes athletics her 
point of departure in her excursions into the realms 
of truth, whether history, language, or science. She 
accepts the boy as she knows him to be and strives 
to expand the circle of his knowledge so as to 
include the related unknown. 

Interests inter-related. — The girl who has but a 
mild interest in Latin but who has a passion for 
music may have her interest in Latin intensified by 
means of her music. The teacher has only to ask 
her to report to the class on the Latin expressions 
she finds in her musical nomenclature to arouse her 
to a wider appreciation of the Latin. Members of 
the family are looking forward to a career for her 
in music, with but a perfunctory acceptance of 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 197 

Latin, but when she discovers to them and herself 
what a large contribution the Latin makes to an 
intelligent interpretation of musical terms the neces- 
sity for the study of Latin becomes more exigent 
and the Latin no longer seems extraneous or 
superfluous. 

Similarly Latin may be invested with a new sig- 
nificance to the boy who has a bias for chemistry. 
His interests in chemistry renders him peculiarly 
susceptible to suggestions touching his favorite 
study and, when he is asked for a list of chemical 
terms of Latin origin, he responds with avidity; 
the results are a surprise and a delight to him; and, 
thereafter, Latin becomes to him a living language 
seeing that it enters so largely into the study which 
to him is altogether vital. The lawyer is galvan- 
ized by the request from his son for assistance in 
making a list of legal terms derived from the Latin. 
He had thought his Latin was a thing of the past 
and is agreeably surprised to find himself poring 
over law books and Latin books, side by side, in 
an effort to help his son maintain family trad'tions 
in his work at school. 

Study of Latin. — We are told that the study of 
Latin is declining. If this be true, then it is high 
time to induct into the schools such teachers as 
have the ability and the inclination to vitalize, 
humanize, and socialize the study so as to save it 
from extinction. If the study of Latin is nothing 



198 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

more than a post-mortem exercise, it were a vast 
pity. The language is deserving of fairer treat- 
ment, both for what it is, and for what it has done 
for literature, for science, for other languages, and, 
through these, for all the learned professions. Law, 
medicine, and theology have laid this language 
under heavy tribute, to their own great advantage, 
and such a heritage is not to be lightly esteemed. 

The teachers of Latin in a large high school 
generated a veritable fever of interest in their 
study, both throughout the school and in the com- 
munity, by means of an exhibit that portrayed in 
a graphic way the relation of the language to bot- 
any, chemistry, physiology, music, art, literature, 
the public press, architecture, medicine, law, adver- 
tising, athletics, and a host of other elements of 
civilization. There were models, posters, drawings, 
pictures, and letters from distinguished men and 
w^omen in the exhibit, all tending to emphasize the 
socializing influence of the language. The sequel of 
that exhibit was an increased interest, on the part 
of the community, not only in the study of Latin 
but, also, in the entire work of the school. In the 
hands of such teachers Latin will not decline. 

The complexity of the social process. — No one 
can give serious consideration to the content of the 
social process without realizing, in some fair meas- 
ure, its great complexity. The grocer, the miner, 
the artisan, the physician, the capitalist, the clerk. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 199 

tlie milliner, the editor, the minister, the newsboy, 
and the iDublic official all move along their appointed 
ways, without friction, each executing his function 
in the scheme of society. The interests of all these 
are present in the school awaiting a hearing. If 
this hearing is not accorded to them they have a 
warrant for feeling aggrieved and disappointed. It 
is the teacher's high privilege to effect a merger of 
these interests and the interests of the school to 
the end that the interests of both society and the 
school may be conserved and amplified. 

The fruit-grower whose orchards were cared for 
by the boys of a city high school, after school 
hours, had occasion to congratulate himself upon 
the increased yield of his trees and the improved 
quality of the fruit, but his greatest dividend was 
the satisfaction that resulted from this reciprocal 
transaction. The boys were paid for their services 
and, so, were gainers both in self-support and self- 
respect. In time, the man and the boys came to 
have a sort of proprietary interest in one another 
and thus the interests of the school and the farm 
were agreeably merged. 

The cosmopolitan teacher. — In this connection it 
must be urged again that, before a transaction of 
this nature is possible, the teacher must know the 
farmer, must be somewhat conversant with his 
needs, must realize the degree of technical knowl- 
edge and skill requisite for such service, and must 



200 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

know liow to organize the activities of the school 
that they may function in such knowledge and skill. 
In brief, the teacher must be the intelligent inter- 
mediary between the farm and the school and so 
be able to face in both directions. Just here, some 
incredulous one may ask whether the teacher is 
supposed to be endowed with omniscience. It will 
be quite sufficient to reply that what has been 
described is a faithful, though partial, report of 
a transaction in connection with the work of West 
Technical High School, Cleveland, Ohio. 

In another city the commercial seniors were dele- 
gated to keep the books for shop-keepers in various 
lines of business as a part of their practical train- 
ing and acquitted themselves so well that the mer- 
chants became ardent advocates of the commercial 
department and took a personal interest in the 
advancement of the young people after their grad- 
uation. The management, the spirit, and the' effi- 
ciency of the school were topics of conversation in 
groceries, offices, and shops of different kinds 
throughout the city, and adequate facilities for 
school work were provided without a murmur. 

The teacher and community movements. — It must 
be evident by now, that the process of socializing 
school work must originate in the teachers' knowl- 
edge of and interest in community movements. The 
teacher must take the initiative; otherwise, society 
and the school will hold aloof from each other. The 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 201 

teacher must know his pupils and their interests 
before he can make even a beginning in this process. 
If he disdains the interests of his pupils, and sits 
supinely at his desk, wholly absorbed in academic 
meditations, exculpation will not fall to his lot. 
The high school is no place for a mere teacher. He 
must be a citizen as well. Thus as citizen-teacher 
he becomes the ligament between school and society 
through which the life currents inter-flow. If his 
pupils come from the farm, he must know farming; 
if from the mines, he must know mining; if from 
trade, he must know commerce; and, if from the 
factory, he must know manufacture. Otherwise he 
will stand impotent before his problem. 

The socialized school. — We shall achieve the 
socialized school only when each study has been 
made vital and human so as to attach itself nat- 
urally and, therefore, inevitably to the native inter- 
ests of pupils. Here, again, as always, the teacher 
is the promoting agency. He dare not ignore the 
conative dispositions of his pupils, and the empiri- 
cal element in teaching must be permitted to assert 
its rightful claim. The teacher, let us say, observes 
in certain pupils an interest in birds. This interest 
will readily express itself in the construction of 
bird-houses. The teacher has but to sense the 
interest and then create the situation, and the 
pupils blithely respond. This interest in birds 
may be expanded till it has compassed /'To a 



202 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

Water-Fowl," Shelley's ^^Ode to a Sky Lark" and 
many other great poems, and the formation of an 
Audubon club will be but a natural sequence. 

Domestic science, domestic art, and manual train- 
ing lend themselves aptly to the socializing process 
because they attach themselves so readily to the 
conative dispositions of the pupils. These studies 
make a wide appeal both to pupils and to their 
parents and very soon their beneficent influences 
permeate the homes and manifest themselves in 
more wholsome and more artistic conditions of 
living. The members of the family unite in cele- 
brating the advent of a bit of furniture which the 
industry and skill of the son has produced and 
the eclat reaches its climax in a product of the 
daughter's culinary skill. In such a situation the 
school is a vital part of the social process and is 
accepted by all members of that family at its full 
value. 

Socializing the study of chemistry. — Coinciden- 
tally with this picture, mention may be made of 
a village high school whose teacher of chemistry 
assigns to the boys and girls such tasks as analyz- 
ing food-products and fabrics. These tasks they 
execute with unabating industry and zeal until con- 
clusions are reached. If these pupils are con- 
templating the purchase of garments they first 
analyze the sample in order to determine the real 
quality of the fabric. If some food-product in the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 203 

Lome is under the ban of suspicion they take a 
sample to the laboratory and make a test for its 
purity. The home and the school thus become coor- 
dinate and the merchants are all made aware that 
their offerings are under scientific surveillance. It 
seems well-nigh superfluous to say that the people 
of that village accord to the work in chemistry 
in their school supreme adulation. 

Incidentally it may be remarked that, in such 
exercises, there will be no abatement of thorough- 
ness. On the contrary, the pupils will lay under 
tribute all available sources of information and 
will delve into the intricacies and niceties of the 
study in order to gain full confidence in the cor- 
rectness of their conclusions. The definite problem 
upon which they are working gives added zest to 
the enterprise and stimulates a deeper interest as 
well as continuity of purpose. With such definite 
problems before them the teacher finds no occa- 
sion to enjoin upon them concentration of mind 
and fixity of purpose for he knows full well that 
these will come as a natural sequence. 

In another school, in the presence of a consid- 
erable group of pupils and citizens, a boy gave 
an exhibition, in careful detail, of the entire process 
of soap-making. First of all, he showed and 
explained the nature of the constituent ingredients, 
and then proceeded to combine these elements, giv- 
ing lucid explanations of the chemical changes that 



::04 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

were taking place, in the evolutionary process, nntil, 
finally, lie produced for the inspection of his audi- 
tors a bar of soap. The generous applause that 
attended the consummation of his efforts was 
indubitable evidence that he had made a worthy 
contribution to the socialization of that school and, 
particularly, the study of chemistry. 

The study of history. — In a preeminent degree 
history is a socializing study. The movements of 
society are both social and historical and these 
two phases of community life may be made to 
blend under the direction of a skillful teacher. 
The morning paper teems with narratives of events 
that are forward in the world and the pupils come 
to the school surcharged with interest in many of 
these events. If the teacher has a like interest in 
these events he, inevitably, attaches the activi- 
tis of the school to these common interests and the 
work proceeds apace. If, on the other hand, the 
teacher has no intelligent interest in these events 
and accounts them extrinsic, he detaches the class- 
work from the interests of the pupils and so im- 
pedes their progress. The first ^ye minutes of 
every class-exercise in history may well be devoted 
to current events in order to develop a point of 
contact for the lesson proper, and, herein lies the 
crucial test of the teacher of history. 

If the pupils carry back to their homes some 
data from their history exercise that will clarify 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 205 

and illumine conversations evoked by the morning 
paper, the home will acknowledge its obligations 
to the school and will recognize in the pupil a 
fortunate medium of communication. The paper 
is freighted with accounts of elections, inaugura- 
tions, legislative enactments, judicial decrees, com- 
mercial transactions of vast import, honors con- 
ferred, industrial movements, literary achievements, 
and a host of other matters that reflect the life of 
society. Dull, indeed, is the pupil who does not 
carry into the school an interest in one or more 
of these events and duller, yet, the teacher who fails 
to appreciate this interest and make it the point 
of departure in the teaching of history, thus doing 
the socializing process a grave disservice. 

The study of English. — It were a work of super- 
erogation to recount the manifold facets in the 
teaching of English that favor the process of social- 
ization. There is no class-exercise but bristles with 
opportunities. Here, again, the major prerequisite 
is a knowledge of the pupils' interests.' Lacking 
such knowledge the teacher is at great disadvant- 
age and moves at random. Having once gained 
this knowledge the teacher is in full command of 
the situation and is enabled to give intelligent and 
sympathetic direction to all the movements. 
"Whether written or oral, the work in composition 
will attach itself to the pupiPs interests, and his 
advance will be from the known to the related 



206 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

unknown. His work will not be conditioned by the 
teacher's prejudices, predispositions, or theories but 
by his own interests and native dispositions. 

The teacher selects books for the pupils with 
discriminating judgment that is based upon knowl- 
edge. Their reading, therefore, is not fortuitous 
or hap-hazard but proceeds from intelligent direc- 
tion, is consistent with their aptitudes and inter- 
ests and is designed to expand those interests. 
Even in the matter of spelling this teacher consults 
the interests of each pupil in formulating lists 
of words. There are words that are peculiar to 
the interests of each pupil and the teacher's aim 
is to give intelligent freedom in the use of the 
nomenclature of their interests. She does not seek 
to divorce pupils from their interests but to 
quicken their intelligence and broaden their knowl- 
edge and also to make these interests a starting- 
point for excursions into unexplored realms. 

In this process of socialization every impact upon 
the keyboard in the school produces a response in 
the home; both institutions come into a completer 
appreciation of their inter-dependence and recipro- 
cal relations; their inter-play of activities rein- 
forces the vital powers of both; and, by reason of 
this process, both make greater and better con- 
tributions to the welfare of the larger democracy. 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE HOME AND THE SCHOOL 

Critical attitude of teachers. — It is quite tlie 
fashion for some teachers in the high school to 
indulge in criticisms touching the conduct of the 
homes from which the pupils come. They main- 
tain that, were the homes all that they ought to 
be, the work of the school would be greatly facili- 
tated. At times, these criticisms are offered in 
the presence of the pupils whose homes are the 
objects of attack. In like manner, the homes fre- 
quently arraign school and teachers with marked 
severity and it sometimes happens that pupils and 
parents unite in a chorus of criticism that is noth- 
ing short of raucous in its virulence. 

Waiving, for the moment, the justice or injustice 
of this critical attitude on both sides, it is but 
a fair inference that it must arise from a misunder- 
standing of the true relation of the two institu- 
tions. Both the school and the home claim to be 
seeking the highest good of the young people with 
whom they have to do. In view of this claim their 
criticism of each other seems highly incongruous, 
and the explanation of this condition must be 

207 



208 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

sought underneath surface indications. At the very 
outset, it may be asserted that some parents, down 
deep in their thinking, regard their children, who 
have come to high school age, as assets rather than 
liabilities. This parental attitude will go far toward 
rendering an explanation of their criticism of the 
school. They have been looking forward to the 
time when their children would become productive 
agencies and, when this hope fails of realization, 
they feel that they have been victims of delusion 
and censure the school for their discomfiture. 

In such a situation, the teacher condemns the 
attitude of the parent as incomprehensible and fool- 
ish without concerning himself with the antecedent 
conditions. Thus a relation of incompatibility is 
generated and the home and the school draw away 
from each other. The teacher feels that, in view 
of all he is doing for the pupil, the home should 
show some gratitude; and the parents feel that, 
in view of all the added expense which the school 
is entailing upon him, the teacher should show 
some appreciation of his sacrifices. The primary 
motive is self-interest and this leads people to 
magnify their prerogatives. In the case of teacher 
and parent this may easily lead to a schism. 

Lack of harmony and the causes. — The teacher's 
work is onerous and he feels that the parent should 
at least, refrain from making additions to his bur- 
dens. On the other hand, the parent finds the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 209 

expenses of the high school cumulative and, in 
striving to locate responsibility, comes inevitably 
to the teacher. Such an acute situation brings dis- 
comfort to the pupil. He is made to feel that he 
is the bone of contention and he wonders if the 
most eifective way of cutting the Gordian knot 
would not be to withdraw from school. Herein 
lies the tragedy of the affair. He wants to live 
in harmony with his home and with his school 
but finds it most difficult in view of the strained 
relations that are not of his making. In such a 
coil he becomes bewildered and life takes on a 
somber cast. He may fulminate against conditions 
at will, but the situation does not change. 

Then, again, many parents can not sec whither 
all this training in the high school is leading and 
so become impatient. They are accustomed to 
look for more or less immediate results from expen- 
ditures of time and money, and grow restive at 
the delay. Statistics as to the advantages of edu- 
cation make but slight appeal to them. The father 
draws his pay at the end of the week and can thus 
see the results of his labor, but he can not see 
how the study of algebra is connected with a pay- 
envelope. The earning of a livelihood for his fam- 
ily is the fact that bulks large on his horizon and 
he knows of no talisman that will meliorate actual 
conditions. A holiday gives him no joy since it 
imposes upon him a curtailment of expenses. He 



210 THE HiaH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

assents, languidly, to the theories concerning edu- 
cation so as not to seem refractory, but, in reality, 
the whole affair is a hopeless confusion. 

The hard conditions of life have robbed him of 
any vision he may have had in the hey-day of 
youth, till now he sits dazed in the midst of rhap- 
sodies on the beauties of poetry, art, music, or 
nature. Life to him is a bleak, storm-tossed coast 
barren of verdure and flowers. To him the life of 
a teacher spells ease and luxury and the things 
with which she has to do seem inanities. To him 
life holds out no guerdon save toil, grinding, unre- 
mitting toil and, hence, the demands of the school 
seem importunate. The case of this man may 
seem extreme, but it is well to remind ourselves 
that the son or daughter of such a man may be 
found in many a high school. 

Lack of perspective on the part of parents. — 
There are other parents who resent the fact that 
their children are emerging from their childhood. 
They would have them remain children with their 
childish fancies and their dependence upon their 
parents for all things, including their ways of think- 
ing. To such parents the high school seems to be 
robbing them of their children. They attribute to 
the school all the changes incident to adolescence 
and hold it accountable for the growing independ- 
ence in thought and action that is, apparently, pro- 
ducing a sort of estrangement between themselves 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 211 

and their children. To them the school seems a con- 
travention of the home and they seem to think 
that, bnt for the school, the home might be what 
it was. Such parents would make the high school 
responsibile for their inability to thwart the behests 
of nature. 

The mother weeps and the father becomes petu- 
lant at the evident inclination of their children 
to make home a mere convenience, little realizing 
that this attitude betokens health and normality 
and that their fealty to home and parents has not 
abated but that the impulses of a new life are 
carrying them forth into other adventures. Not 
realizing all this the parents lay the charge against 
school and teachers that they are alienating the 
affections and fidelity of their children. So 
immersed do these young people become in the 
manifold activities of the new life that home 
affairs, to which they have so long been accus- 
tomed, recede into secondary importance, for the 
time being. But these new affairs seem banal to 
the parents, and even the language of their children 
seems well-nigh incoherent. The more non-plused 
the parents become the more caustic their criticism 
of the school. 

The home of complex interests. — There is still 
another type of home that is well represented in 
the high school body and that is the home of 
affluence, the home that is conspicuous in the social 



212 THE man school problem 

events of the community. The life in snch a home 
is complex and has so many angles that some of 
these impinge upon the work of the school. Indeed, 
the pupil often finds himself requisitioned for serv- 
ices that seem diametrically opposed. The school 
duties conflict with the duties of the home and 
the parents contend that home duties should take 
precedence. This leads to embarrassment at school 
seeing that the teacher takes the view that school 
duties should outrank all others. A principal once 
excused a girl from some of her work so as to go 
home and get a rest much-needed because of her 
attendance at a reception in the home which con- 
tinued till one o'clock. A teacher took umbrage at 
the principal's action, saying that the girl could 
not afford to miss a lesson. 

This girl must needs conform to the demands of 
life in her home, and, so, could not absent herself 
from the reception. The reception was the event 
of the year in that home, and engaged the attention 
of all members of the family for many days. The 
reception, itself, was the culmination of a long 
series of complex activities to which all else was 
made subordinate. Willingly or otherwise the girl 
must be subservient to all these activities, even 
at the expense of school progress. Her teachers, 
feeling responsible for her success in school work, 
are inclined to inveigh against such interruptions, 
while the parents can not, with complacency, brook 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 213 

any interference with their cherished plans. This 
situation has many exemplifications in homes of 
this type and recriminations on the part of both 
organisms often ensue. The school feels that the 
home has the advantage and the home feels that 
the school takes advantage. 

It were idle as well as futile to assert that the 
rights, in such a case, are all with one side or the 
other. The school is not competent to change, 
by its fiat, the mode of life in that home; and the 
home can not expect the school to derange its large 
plans to suit the convenience of one pupil, or one 
home. The train does not wait for the man who 
is the victim of a mishap, but must proceed on its 
way so as to conserve the interests of the many. 
The difficulty of the whole relation of home and 
school lies in the fact that the pupil must conform 
to the regulations of the home and, in doing so, 
often goes counter to the regulations of the school 
and so is caught between the upper and the nether 
mill-stone. 

The school a composite. — These typical homes 
and many others that might be cited epitomize, in 
a fair degree, the cosmopolitan character of the 
high school population and interests. In a certain 
high school there are twenty-two nations repre- 
sented and we naturally infer that the nationali- 
ties in the community number just about the same. 
In other words, as is the larger democracy, so, in the 



214 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

main, is the high-school democracy. In the larger 
democracy we find many people whose business it 
is to safeguard the physical well-being of the people. 
These comprise physicians, nurses, inspectors, sani- 
tary officials, officers of charitable organizations, 
and a host of others, who execute the decrees of 
all these agencies. The first care of all these is to 
take an inventory of home conditions as a basis for 
intelligent procedure. If there is infection in the 
home, a quarantine is established; and if the food 
supply is inadequate, this lack is supplied through 
established channels. 

In brief, the well-being of the larger democracy 
depends upon the proper care of the homes, and, 
hence, supervision is e?:ercised, as a rightful func- 
tion, by the larger democracy, not as paternalism, 
but by way of self-protection. In view of the 
identical natures of the two democracies, it seems 
highly important for the high school to sanction 
and reinforce all the activities of the community 
that tend to promote its best interests. To do this 
effectively the high-school authorities must become 
conversant with the home affairs of the pupils. If 
teachers can reconstitute the conditions in the 
homes, their work, in its extra-academic scope, can 
proceed intelligently and sympathetically. 

Versatile teacher necessary. — Since we may not 
have in the high school all the agencies that seem 
essential in the way of promoting right commun- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 215 

ity life, it seems necessary for the teachers to 
assume, vicariously, the functions of these agencies. 
It will be subversive of the best interests of society 
if the physician and the teacher are working at 
cross-purposes; but, in order that their efforts may 
run parallel and that the teacher may reinforce 
his work, she must apprise herself of the physi- 
cian's mandates with the reasons for their promul- 
gation. In truth, if a closer alliance could be 
established among all these agencies for conserv- 
ing the welfare of society, so that they would 
operate as coordinate and confederated activities, 
there would be far less lost motion and society 
would be the gainer. 

One needs to hold no brief for the home to appre- 
ciate its value as an auxiliary in the high school 
economy. It is a fact, distressingly patent to all 
teachers, that the attitude of many homes toward 
the work of the school is somewhat adverse; but it 
is none the less a fact that the attitudes are not 
changed by invective. To apply epithets to the 
pupil because of some defection in the home does 
not bridge the chasm. A fair degree of perspicac- 
ity on the part of the teacher ought to discover 
many facts concerning the home that can be util- 
ized in the school in the way of making the pupil's 
life and work more effective and agreeable. 

The wrong attitude. — A high school girl was fail- 
ing in her work. The teacher made some feeble 



216 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

attempts to discover the reasons but the girl was 
taciturn and the teacher interpreted this as a pro- 
test and then indulged in biting sarcasm, insinuat- 
ing that, if the girl had given as ardent attention 
to her work as she had evidently given to other 
affairs, she would not be conspicuous as the rear- 
guard of her class. In time, it was discovered 
that the girl had been both housekeeper and nurse 
during the serious illness of her mother, and that 
her haggard appearance was the result of loss of 
sleep and anxiety. All this the teacher could 
readily have discovered by consulting the physician. 

At the very time when this girl needed a friend, 
in the sore strait, that she had no power to avert, 
she failed to find one in her teacher and was 
made to feel that she was a sort of pariah. If 
the school is to give credit for home work, such 
a case as this affords a favorable opportunity. Bet- 
ter, by far, give credit for such noble service as 
this girl performed than for twiddling at petty 
tasks that have no educative value. This girl 
had been concerned with the big, elemental things 
of life and should have received praise for her 
filial affection and fidelity. Instead, she received 
public censure from the teacher who might easily 
have made discovery of the facts. 

The right attitude. — Over against this is the 
case of a boy whose mother was dead and who, 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 217 

therefore, was housekeeper for his father and 
three younger children. Because of poverty the 
father worked from early morning till late in the 
evening, and so the entire care of the home devolved 
upon this boy. One day each week he was absent 
from school to perform the tasks of the laundry, 
and, at the close of school each day, he hurried 
home knowing that the children would be anxiously 
awaiting his return. Surface indications were all 
against this boy, but the teacher made it her 
business to get at the facts and life was thereby 
made more agreeable for him. In some mysterious 
way, baskets of substantials and delicacies found 
their way into the little home, no mention was 
made of his absence on laundry day, he was treated 
with frank consideration by teachers and pupils, 
and, when he graduated at the head of his class, 
he was the recipient of a veritable ovation. Besides, 
it required the services of the father and the three 
little ones to carry all his flowers home. 

If the teacher has real leadership many oppor- 
tunities are present for aligning the homes with 
the processes of the school. Much of this work 
can be done through the pupils and they are glad 
to co-operate with the teachers in such a laudable 
and gracious enterprise. If the home and the 
school seem arrayed against each other it is 
clearly within the province of the teacher to find 



218 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

lier way over to the side of the home and so, in 
time, lead it over to the side of the school. The 
home has its viewpoint and has a right to it; but 
the home is quite amenable to reason and per- 
suasive influences and, under the right sort of treat- 
ment, can be brought into harmony with the school 
regime. 

If the widowed mother needs the product of her 
son's industry, and the teacher finds him produc- 
tive employment outside of school hours the mother 
will not only become reconciled to the demands of 
the school but will experience a feeling of grati- 
tude to the school for its ability to see life from 
her angle. Not only so, but she argues that, if 
education can do for her son what it has evidently 
done for his teacher, then she can well afford to 
exercise more patience as to results. In a word, 
she is far more ready to accept the work of the 
school on faith, and co-operate with it more 
readily and heartily. 

What is true of this home is equally true of 
others, even though their problems are different. 
It is far better to have the co-operation of the 
wealthy father than his opposition, and to gain his 
co-operation is a worthy work for the resourceful 
teacher. There need be no undue adulation nor 
any sycophancy. On the contrary, all that is 
needed is a fair and open setting forth of matters 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 219 

at issue. To solve such problems as this redounds 
quite as much to the teacher's credit as to solve 
academic problems, and the solution of the home 
problem clears the way for the solution of many 
other problems that rank as academic. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
MOTIVES IN TEACHING 

The motive of self-interest. — At the outset, it 
must be conceded that the motive of self-interest 
is universal. The stoker in the hold and the cap- 
tain on the bridge; the maid in the kitchen and 
the mistress in the parlor; the porter in the lobby 
and the manager in the office; the clerk at the 
counter and the merchant at his desk; the boy who 
carries the telegram and the capitalist who receives 
it; the chauffeur at the wheel and the owner in 
the tonneau; the laborer in the mine and the mil- 
lionaire on the boulevard; the prisoner at the bar 
and the judge on the bench; the charwoman at 
her task and the woman of fashion at the ball; 
the beggar at the door and the woman who dis- 
penses alms; the peasant in the field and the ruler 
in the palace; all these are actuated by the motive 
of self-interest. 

These anthithetical details are set out by way 
of emphasizing the fact that, in the larger democ- 
racy, we encounter the motive of self-interest at 
every turn. It must be evident, therefore, that this 
same motive obtains in the smaller democracy, see- 

220 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 221 

ing that it is an integral part of the larger. This 
self-interest is not restricted to the accnmnlation 
of money, by any means. Primarily, of course, it 
has reference to food, clothing, and shelter; bnt 
it may extend far beyond these limits. It may 
include fame, reputation, social position, official 
position, leadership, and many things of greater 
or less import. Normal people all have aspirations 
and these aspirations give direction to their inter- 
ests. Self-interest may be deflected, of course, and 
made to merge into what are known as the higher 
motives, but in all our dealings with people, 
whether old or young, we are safe in assuming 
the presence of self-interest. 

Self-interest in school work. — Why should a boy 
give the paradigm of volo9 Must he give it merely 
because the teacher requests or commands him to 
do sol Must he give it to escape low marks or 
some other form of penalizing? These questions 
naturally come to the mind of the boy, whether they 
occur to the teacher or not. In society we do not 
hold a man in high esteem who pursues a course 
of conduct merely to evade punishment. It is self- 
interest, to be sure, but we account it a base form 
of self-interest. "What is true in society is equally 
true in the school. The teacher explains that, in 
the years to come, this knowledge will be useful 
to him; but to the boy this is sheer sophistry. The 
man whose lawn he mows might explain, in like 



1:22 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

manner, that the half-dollar that is due him for 
his services will be useful to him in the years to 
come and, that, therefore, he will withold his pay 
until those years have elapsed. Both explanations 
seem equally illogical to the boy. 

Unless the teacher can evolve an explanation that 
will make a far stronger appeal to the boy, she 
ought to excuse him from the paradigm and plead 
guilty to lack of ingenuity and resourcefulness. 
Indeed, if that is the best she can do in the way 
of explaining her specialty, the boy should be 
excused from the study of Latin altogether, and 
be permitted to devote his time and talents to 
some study whose immediate and ultimate value 
can be made more evident. The boy wants to know 
and has a right to know both what he is doing 
and why he is doing it. A boy shrinks from 
snow-drifts as mere producers of health and 
strength, but he will struggle through snow-drifts 
for hours in pursuit of a rabbit. It would seem 
that a teacher with even a fair degree of ingenuity 
ought to be able to find some rabbit that will lure 
this boy, joyously and courageously, through the 
drifts of volo. 

Attaching work to pupil's self-interest.— The 
teacher's ipse dixit is not sufficient, and the teacher 
who must resort to mere authority does not raise 
either herself or her subject in the estimation of 
the pupils. There ought to be some way discover- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 223 

able to make every subject in the school attach 
itself to the pupil's self-interest on the positive 
side. It may seem a far cry from the study of 
Latin to the desire to be a blacksmith, but Elihu 
Burrit was a blacksmith and studied not only Latin 
but many other languages. The appeal to author- 
ity represses the pupils, whereas the setting up of 
motives causes them to expand. The slave-driver 
did not need to concern himself with the question 
of motives for the reason that he had a whip in 
his hand with authority to use it at will. The 
analogy holds good in the school. There is a wide 
difference between slave-driving and teaching. 

Futility of coercion. — Teaching is the process of 
opening the spirit of the pupil for the reception of 
truth. But the spirit cannot be forced open. The 
more force applied, the more obdurate does the 
pupil become. The normal pupil is docile under 
proper stimulus, but coercion will not avail. Some 
motive must be found that will cause his spirit to 
smile itself wide open. This is not sentiment but 
pedagogy. The mechanical teacher will smile dis- 
approval, but that only proves him mechanical. 
Unless there is open-mindedness on the part of the 
pupil, truth will stand unwelcomed without the 
gates. Eight at this point may be found much 
pathetic wreckage in many high schools. Teach- 
ers are trying to do by force what they are unable 
to do otherwise. The tragedy of it all is that such 



224 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

teachers do not recognize, or at least, do not admit 
their impotence. 

Teachers such as these nag, badger, and hector 
pupils without mercy and, then, expect the prin- 
cipal to support them in their course of academic 
bull-dozing. There is no use blinking the facts. 
Such as these have no place in a school. They 
should concern themselves with inanimate things 
and not with human beings. If their attention is 
called to complaints that reach the office, they 
cite their years of experience, not realizing, appar- 
ently, that experience may be a liability as well 
as an asset. With the utmost complacency they 
disdain the study of methods, serene in their self- 
sufficiency. But for the balance that other teach- 
ers supply in the school their course would incite 
mutiny. If they cannot be brought to face the sit- 
uation as it really is, they have recourse to the weak 
expedient that the pupils bear them a grudge. 
Worst of all, they do even not have the grace to 
resign. 

Teachers as idealists. Teachers are and ought to 
be idealists. When the boy enters school they 
ought to be able to look through the years and see 
him on the day of his graduation, a clean, upstand- 
ing, intelligent, cultured young gentleman. Unless 
they can catch this vision, their work will lack 
the piquancy that appeals to youth. They will be 
time-servers, working by the day, and not artists 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 225 

dreaming the picture through to its final trium- 
phant completion. They will do hack work, instead 
of projecting and fashioning masterpieces. The 
artist sees the angel in the stone from its inception 
to its completion and the details are all the more 
accurate and artistic because of his vision. The 
projection of his gaze into the future serves to 
inspire his hand to even greater skill. He sees the 
end from the beginning, or he would be no artist. 

He yearns to achieve, and so gives an exempli- 
fication of the motive of self-interest. The teacher 
who is actuated by this same motive imparts her 
spirit to the pupils and their work together takes 
on the glow of enthusiasm. Every stroke of pen 
or chisel is another advance toward high achieve- 
ment and, guided by the glow of the teacher's 
enthusiasm, no pupil ever works in the dark. The 
pupils may not all be actuated by the same motive, 
but it is evident that the teacher has imbued them 
with some purpose that lures them on. 

Variants of self-interest. — The motive of self- 
interest shades off into many subdivisions that 
either are isolated or merge into other motives. 
The desire to achieve is one manifestation or varia- 
tion of self-interest. One may desire to achieve for 
one reason, and another for still another reason. 
Whatever reasons may lie back of it, there must 
be agreement that this motive is a proper one, and 
is most potent in inciting to effort. The artisan 



226 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

takes joy in his achievement, aside from tlie com- 
pensation for his services, and the foretaste of this 
joy inspires him throughout the entire process. This 
joy is intensified by indications of appreciation 
from others. The pupil may find joy in the correct 
solution of the problem, but a word of commenda- 
tion from the teacher is the crown-piece of the 
achievement. An ounce of encouragement is better 
than a pound of criticism. 

The discouraged pupil is one of the teacher's 
large problems, and the solution lies in setting 
up some motive that will lead through the slough 
of despond out into realms of pleasure. It can 
be done; it has been done times without number, 
and the teacher who accounts it an impossibility 
thereby merely confesses her inability to supply 
an effective motive. We are told that art is the 
expression of man's joy in his work. This being 
true, it is evident that, if the pupil does not have 
joy in his work, the teacher may know her work 
as a science but not as an art. If she would vin- 
dicate the art phase of her work, she must do so 
through its manifestations. We are told, also, that 
the value of any work depends upon how the 
worker feels while doing it. Hence, the need for 
a motive that will obviate discouragement, and 
generate a sense of pleasure. 

Desire for approbation. — We all crave the appro- 
bation of our peers. Eliminate this motive from 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PKOBLEM 227 

the ball-game and the interest of the players will 
flag. If the teacher will so manage that the class 
will applaud the work of the discouraged pupil, 
life will assume a brighter cast for him and his 
work will become far more joyous and effective. 
His essay may be selected as the one to be read 
to the class, or he may be called upon for the 
explanation of the difficult problem. The class will 
readily understand and gladly reinforce the teach- 
er's plans. The wind may favor the best sailor, 
as the adage has it, but the teacher's work is to 
stimulate the mediocre sailor to achieve his best, 
and suffer no discouragement in his efforts by com- 
parison with others. The boy accounts that day a 
triumph that brings to him the approbation of 
his teachers and his mates. 

Mercenary motives. — Mercenary motives are in 
evidence all the while in society and sometimes 
they are injected into the work of the school. Par- 
ents, at times, resort to the poor expedient of hiring 
or bribing their children to attain high grades in 
their school work. The plan must be deprecated 
because of its tendency to degrade and cheapen the 
work of the school. Herein lies the danger of giv- 
ing school credit for home work. The plan encour- 
ages the tendency « to evade difficult situations. 
There is no honor to the soldier who has done no 
fighting. It is not easy to say what home work 
is an honest equivalent for the solving of an 



228 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

original in geometry. Besides, the solving of the 
problem begets continuity of purpose, patience, per- 
severance and fiber; and the pupil misses all these 
advantages if he is permitted to make substitutions. 
If the home-work develops the boy in an equal 
degree; if, in short, it requires equal effort, the 
boy will quite as readily elect to solve the problem. 
In this entire scheme there are far too many oppor- 
tunities for evasion and subterfuge. The school 
should stand for full values honestly rendered. 

The motive of curiosity. — No instrument of suffi- 
cient delicacy has yet been devised by which it may 
be determined why a boy will climb to the top of 
a high tree to examine the nest of a bird. The 
unthinking call it fool-hardiness, but we know, in 
general, that every deliberate act has a motive 
behind it. Self-interest seems an inadequate expla- 
nation of the boy's act until we reflect that cur- 
iosity may be a constituent element of self-interest. 
Once a boy's curiosity is thoroughly aroused, we 
know that scarcely any limits can be set to his 
endeavors. He comes from the tree flushed with 
victory and makes a detailed report on the bird's 
nest. Whatever the explanation of the boy's act, 
the teacher who is alert takes cognizance of the 
facts and makes an effort to att.ach the work of the 
school to the same motives that impelled him to 
climb the tree. The physical discomfort will be 
less to the boy in making his way through the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 229 

mazes of physics than through the branches of 
the tree if the teacher will bnt set up motives that 
are equally impelling. 

Curiosity may be aroused by the form of a ques- 
tion, by the tone of voice, by a mere hint or sug- 
gestion, or even by silence. If the teacher dis- 
continues the reading of a story at the summit of 
interest, the pupil will find some way of complet- 
ing the reading. If the teacher will confess a 
desire to know some fact of which she is ignorant, 
the boy will make the discovery for her and, at 
the same time, for himself. Curiosity will charm 
the pupil through the intricacies of languages, 
science, history, and mathematics; and the explora- 
tions will be no hardship. The great explorers of 
the world were all curious to know, whatever other 
motives may have actuated them, and the boys and 
girls of high school age are explorers by nature. 

The need for objectives. — If we could but meas- 
ure the fine energy that is wasted in our high 
schools for lack of a definite objective, the record 
would appall us. We are greatly concerned in the 
matter of conservation touching our natural 
resources, forests, streams, and minerals, and per- 
mit much of the energy of young people to come 
to naught because of our ignorance of or indiifer- 
ence to impelling motives. Some of the responsi- 
bility must be laid at the doors of society but the 
school must bear the larger share of the responsi- 



230 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

bility, for the very good reason that one of its 
prime functions is to conserve and direct the energy 
of youth. Many teachers have yet to learn how 
to tap these great storehouses of energy effectively, 
and some of them show but faint interest in learn- 
ing. We laud the schools in eloquent periods, and 
clamor for more money so as to procure greater 
equipment, and still are prodigal of the energy 
that greatly transcends all material equipment. 
We take great unction to ourselves for the fields 
that are productive and show pitiful unconcern as 
to the fields that are lying fallow. 

Retardation. — There is something wrong in the 
teaching when the normal boy or girl must repeat 
the work of a year or a half-year. We need not 
think of miracles in connection with school work 
in our efforts to adduce extenuating circumstances. 
Teachers are prone to excuse themselves for this 
condition and try to shift the blame to the pupils. 
They speak glibly of retardation, stupidity, indif- 
ference, extraneous interests, and a host of other 
things in an effort to gloss the matter. But the 
stem fact remains that, had they known how to 
reach these boys and girls, the mortality would 
have been restricted to illness or other misfor- 
tune. They look upon their decimated and depleted 
classes at the close of the year with the utmost 
complacency and even recall the fact that they 
had predicted failure in the case of many of the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 231 

fallen ones. Tliey seem not to realize that tliey 
stand in the presence of tragedy — tragedy that 
might have been averted had they only known 
how. 

This would seem drastic and unreasonable but 
for the knowledge that there are hosts of teachers 
in our high schools who measure up to the high 
ideals that the obverse of the picture represents^ 
They have kept pace w^ith the latest discoveries in 
the methods of teaching and have applied these 
methods to good effect. They have read the books 
that set forth the value of the motive element in 
teaching and have made these books their guide 
to advancement. They are anxious to avail them- 
selves of all discoveries that investigators have 
made, to the jend that the young people whom they 
teach may profit by these discoveries. They are 
not content with the achievement of yesterday, but 
regard each new day as a new opportunity. They 
discard the old as soon as they have proven the 
superiority of the newer. If only all teachers were 
such as these the outlook for the high school would 
be far brighter. 

Social co-operation. — Another variant of the 
motive of self-interest is social co-operation. The 
recalcitrant pupil, the pupil who stands aloof, the 
pupil who is not in harmony with the school order, 
the querulous pupil, the suspicious pupil, and the 
mischievous pupil can, one and all, be led into right 



232 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

ways of conduct, operating in conjunction with 
pupils who are well-disposed. Mischief is nothing 
else than misdirected energy and the wise teacher 
is glad to discover a capacity for mischief because 
she sees in it a possible asset of the school. Through 
the motive of social co-operation, this capacity for 
mischief can be made to redound to the advantage 
of the entire school. Every pupil, consulting self- 
interest, is eager to advance his social status, and 
when he becomes associated with • well-disposed 
pupils in some school enterprise, he soon conforms 
to their standards and thus becomes oriented. 

A high school girl who was the despair of the 
principal was found to have pronounced musical 
ability, and this ability, by the wise direction of a 
teacher through the motive of social^ co-operation, 
became the talisman that transformed a pupil who 
was bent upon mischief into the leader of a school 
orchestra, as well as a social leader in the school. 
A less efficient teacher might have discovered the 
girl's musical bent, but might not have known 
how to utilize this for the benefit of the school 
through the setting up of a motive. The boy who 
disdains the reading of poetry will become enam- 
ored of it when associated with boys, who are 
poetically inclined, in some school enterprise that 
has to do with poetry. Two high school teachers 
induced the pupils of their rooms to give a lawn- 
fete by means of which to raise funds to beautify 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 233 

the school grounds and, in that enterprise, all dis- 
tinctions disappeared and they worked together in 
hearty accord. 

The motive of altruism. — Incipient altruism is 
often discovered in the high school, and this motive, 
properly stimulated and fostered, may ultimately 
lead pupils into enterprises that are world-wide. 
The girl who is encouraged to be helpful in the 
home will soon find opportunities to be equally 
helpful in the home of a neighbor. Thence, her 
interest may extend to other communities until, all 
in good time, she comes to feel that her talents and 
attainments should become an asset for humanity. 
Under the impelling power of the motive of altru- 
ism, the boy in the school may be dreaming dreams 
of constructing railways, tunneling mountains, 
bringing to perfection great inventions, mitigating 
the conditions of life in foreign lands, or reducing 
suffering and sorrow in his own. 

If motives of altriusm can be brought to obtain 
in the high school, no limits can be set to the 
aspirations of the pupils and every study will be 
enmeshed in these aspirations. Science, history, 
language, mathematics, art and music will all be 
laid under tribute as factors in the warp and woof 
of their dreams. They will be eager to know in 
order that they may achieve; and they long to 
achieve that they may render service. 



CHAPTER XIX 
CO-OPERATION 

The term explained. — Co-operation ever more 
implies concession; and concession implies intelli- 
gence, tolerance, open-mindedness, good-will and 
confidence. Unless these qualities are present, in 
some good measure, in a given situation, there can 
be no effective co-operation. The intolerant man 
expects people to come to his way of thinking, but 
disdains to go over to theirs. He is so certain that 
his is the right way that his utterances are cast 
in the mold of the oracular. Such a man can not 
co-operate for the reason that he is incapable of 
making concessions. 

Intolerance betokens the absence of good-will, 
open-mindedness, confidence and kindliness. Tol- 
erance, on the other hand, combines all these quali- 
ties, and, so in a preeminent degree, makes for 
co-operation. The principal who lacks confidence 
in and good-will toward the superintendent will 
not only not co-operate with him but finds himself 
arrayed in real, even though veiled opposition. In 
like manner, good-will and confidence, on the part 
of teachers, necessarily condition their sympathetic 

234 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 235 

co-operation with the principal. Truth is no less 
truth because it may be viewed from different 
angles, and co-operation concedes the correctness of 
the other person's viewpoint. 

Compromises.— Life, at its best, is a series of 
compromises. The merchant takes into account the 
wishes and tastes of his customers in making his 
purchases. If he consults his own tastes and incli- 
nations, merely, he invites disaster. The minister 
must yield something of obedience to the behests 
of his parishoners, not in principle but certainly 
in practice. He may not be an autocrat if he hopes 
to win people to his way of thinking and living. 
The railroad president modifies his own plans after 
meeting with his board of directors and getting 
their viewpoints. The farmer changes his plans 
for the season after a consultation with his neigh- 
bors. In home life, concession is fundamental in 
producing harmony. Indeed the home, and, simi- 
larly, the community which is but a collection of 
homes, has its analogy in the orchestra. The bass- 
drum, the tuba and the trombone must make con- 
cessions to the violin and the flute or there will 
be no harmony. In short, in order to win the sweet- 
ness of the flute, whether in the home, the school 
or the community, there must be concession on the 
part of the other instruments. 

Rights and privileges. — ^In a democracy, ignor- 
ance is blatant in asserting its rights; intelligence 



236 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

is modest in claiming its privileges. Ignorance 
frowns and glowers as it works grudgingly at its 
task; intelligence smiles as it glorifies its humblest 
tasks. Ignorance is resentful in the fancied deny- 
ing of its rights; intelligence is amiable in esteem- 
ing its privileges. Indeed, education is largely a 
matter of shifting the emphasis from rights to 
privileges. Intelligence is glad to waive its rights 
in order to gain freedom in the exercise of its privi- 
leges. In the ocean disaster, the men had a right 
to seek safety in the boats, but they abrogated 
their rights in the interest of women and children, 
and so became heroic figures in the world's history 
and placed a halo upon the brow of manhood. 

This distinction between rights and privileges 
applies to the life of the high-school democracy 
quite as pertinently as to the life of the commun- 
ity. If all who have to do with the school, whether 
as patrons, pupils, teachers, or officials had a full 
appreciation of all school activities as privileges, 
and could -rise above their rights in esteeming these 
privileges, school work would be more harmonious 
and effective. The parent would then no longer 
construe the detention of his child after school 
hours for special instruction as an invasion of his 
rights, but would be grateful for the privilege 
accorded to his child by the teacher. Nor would 
the pupil account this detention as a penalizing 
process but as a privilege emanating from the good- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 237 

will of the teacher. In fact, every class exercise 
would then be looked upon as a privilege and 
esteemed accordingly. In such conditions, the 
teacher, herself, would find joy in the extra work 
thus assumed by reason of the appreciation that 
parent and pupil both make manifest. This extra 
work would no longer be a stern duty but, rather, 
an exhilirating privilege. 

Seeing, thep, that intelligence is one of the prere- 
quisites for effectual co-operation, it follows that 
when intelligence shall rise above rights into the 
realm of privileges, all school agencies will thus 
be animated by a lofty purpose and co-operation 
will ensue as a natural sequence. Then principal, 
teachers, and pupils will be in accord and will give 
of their time and strength, not grudgingly, but 
generously, and will no longer strive to restrict 
their work to the limits of their rights but will 
expand it to the full limits of their privileges. 
They will no longer be thinking of how little they 
may do and still win through but of how much 
they can do for the common good. Their minimum 
will be lost sight of in the contemplation of their 
maximum. Their consuming ambition will be to 
excel themselves. 

Factors in the school order. — The operating 
agencies connected with the high-school organism 
are society, the board, the superintendent, the prin- 
cipal, the teachers, and the pupils. Upon the com- 



238 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

pletion of their course in the school the pupils 
flow back into society and the circle, in theory, 
at least, is complete. Society, through the process 
of election or appointment, clothes the board with 
power and authority. Part of this authority the 
board delegates to the superintendent, who, in turn, 
delegates a part of his authority to the principal; 
and the principal shares his authority with the 
teachers. Each of these agencies is invested with 
certain more or less clearly-defined functions, and 
when each one executes his particular function with 
fidelity and with a high regard for the prerogatives 
of all other agencies the organism becomes an 
effectively articulated system. 

But, when it happens that one agency presumes 
to preempt the functions of another, there is a dis- 
turbance of the orderly procedure. To illustrate, 
the parent has delegated his power and, hence, the 
whole matter has been taken out of his hands and 
he can not, therefore, assume the prerogatives of 
superintendent, principal, or teacher. This prin- 
ciple does not receive ready recognition by the 
parent who is actuated by motives of self-interest 
and who stands upon his rights, oblivious, appar- 
ently, of his privileges. Sometimes, the parent has 
taken school matters into the courts, but the deci- 
sions have almost universally been in favor of the 
schools. Delegated authority can neither be recalled 
nor annulled at the dictation of whim or caprice. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 239 

The functions of the superintendent.— In like 
manner, the board of education can not assume 
functions that belong peculiarly to the superintend- 
ent. It is quite within his province to select teach- 
ers and to have the leading part in the selection of 
text-books and any board member who arrogates 
to himself either of these functions is distinctly 
a trespasser. The superintendent, by express im- 
plication, is an expert in such matters, whereas the 
board member is not. If the superintendent is 
not competent to administer the duties of his office, 
the board has but one recourse, namely, to secure 
the services of another who is competent. By no 
sophistry can a board member justify his assump- 
tion of the duties of superintendent. Furthermore, 
the superintendent, who supinely submits to such 
assumption of his prerogatives, thereby makes con- 
fession to incompetence. 

The functions of the principal. — This same prin- 
ciple obtains throughout the entire system. The 
principal has functions that he can neither evade 
nor delegate. There are times when he would be 
glad to shift responsibility to other shoulders, but 
any attempt to do so must prove abortive. Some 
principals have been known to lose their positions 
because of their inability or unwillingness to 
assume the responsibilities that clearly belonged 
to them and that could not be evaded. Sometimes 
a principal tries to shirk responsibility by shifting 



240 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

it to a teacher, and, thereby, loses the respect of the 
teacher, the pupil, the parents, and presumably, of 
himself. Just as the board member may not, with 
impunity, assume the functions of the superintend- 
ent, so neither the superintendent nor the teacher 
may relieve the principal of his responsibilities. 
Each agent must exercise his own functions or be 
discredited. 

The system is simple and effective if only each 
of the agencies bears his own burdens; but, just 
so soon as there is any transgressing of functions 
or prerogatives, it becomes complex and distorted. 
No one of the agencies may invade the province 
of another without some degree of disaster. 
Whether or not we denominate such invasion as 
Xjolitics, it certainly is not education and so must 
be repudiated as illogical and mischievous. 

Co-operation between school and home. — Turn- 
ing, now, to the positive phase of the high school 
situation it is easy to conceive of a system that 
exemplifies a high degree of co-ordination and 
co-operation. While we may conceive of co-opera- 
tion between home and school, a more logical con- 
ception is that of co-operation between school and 
home. It should be easier for the school to co-oper- 
ate with the home than for the home to co-operate 
with the school. Blanks that pass from the school 
to the home generally invite the co-operation of the 
parents. But the high school is so rare as to be 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 241 

unique that proffers its good offices in co-operating 
with the parents in whatever is good for the pupil. 
The father who knows nothing of chemistry can not 
give intelligent co-operation with the teacher of 
chemistry; but the teacher of chemistry may easily 
co-operate with the father just as soon as he 
apprises himself of the father ^s interests. Through 
the medium of the pupil he may make the chemical 
laboratory a contributing agency in some of the 
problems that pertain to the father 's daily 
activities. 

The school as the agency for co-operation. — It is 
both futile and illogical for the school to invite 
co-operation on the part of the home in relation 
to the academic phases of school life. The school 
is organized to serve the home, and not the reverse. 
In a word, the school should charge itself with 
the responsibility of taking the initiative in the 
matter of bringing to pass a co-operation between 
school and home. There is a subconscious antag- 
onism to the school in many homes that could 
readily be allayed if the school would be at some 
pains to take these homes into its confidence in 
matters touching the life and work of the pupil. 
But the school holds no communication with these 
homes save through the formal and, sometimes, 
unintelligible report that is sent out a few times 
each year. The school is far more prone to report 
the pupiPs failures than his successes, and the 



242 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

home construes this to mean that the school is 
taking credit to itself for his successes while it is 
trying to shift responsibility for his failures upon 
the home. 

Such a procedure is subversive of real co-opera- 
tion. Hence, it needs to be repeated that co-opera- 
tion must be inaugurated by the school. The home 
would gladly co-operate if it only knew how. But, 
not knowing how, it does not take kindly to a 
revelation of the fact. The school is a highly 
organized institution and has at hand all the facili- 
ties for co-operation. It has at hand the facts and 
can interpret these facts in language that the home 
can understand. The home may not speak the lan- 
guage of the school; but the school should be able 
to speak the language of the home. Interest is 
infectious, and when the school shows an interest 
in the home, the home will readily reciprocate. But 
the home will brook no patronizing, and such a 
course is unworthy of the school. 

The home in relation to the school. — The home is 
given first consideration in the general scheme of 
co-operation for the reason that society is the source 
of authority and, when we would clarify and purify 
the stream, we must begin with the fountain whence 
the stream issues. When the high aim and pur- 
poses of the school and its methods have become 
thoroughly enmeshed in the social consciousness, 
society will see to it that only such men and women 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 243 

shall be elected to membership on the board as will 
be able and willing to carry out these large pur- 
poses. The self-seeker will be eliminated and real 
statesmanship will become a prerequisite for mem- 
bership. The statesman is never meddlesome, and 
does not assume the prerogatives that pertain to 
others. He is too big for that, and, also, too busy. 
He makes large plans and then casts about for 
officials who have the capacity to carry his plans 
into effect. He recognizes and respects expert 
knowledge and ever stands ready to co-operate to 
the limit of his knowledge and powers. 

Co-operation in daily practice. — With such stand- 
ards obtaining in the board of education the sup- 
erintendent will find himself free to work out his 
educational plans without interference or political 
heckling. He will have a free hand in the selec- 
tion of principal and teachers and will select such 
as will execute his plans efficiently and effectively. 
The teachers will know that he is the court of final 
appeal and will, therefore, be eager to maintain his 
standards. He will not be autocratic; a real leader 
never is. He will cordially reinforce the work of 
each teacher and will find pleasure in each one^s 
every success. He will recommend such text-books 
as will make for successful work, in the full con- 
sciousness that he has the board, as a bulwark, 
behind him. 

In such a procedure, the principal feels that the 



244 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

authority that has been delegated to him is stable 
and has full face value. The superintendent con- 
fides in him and discloses to him, without reserva- 
tion, his general plans for the school, leaving the 
principal free to work out the details. Thus he 
has free scope for his initiative and is not hampered 
by petty regulations. To him is given full credit 
for all his achievements and his is the inspiration 
of a master-builder. His work is not parceled out 
to him. On the contrary, he is made to feel that 
the board and superintendent have the utmost con- 
fidence in his capacity, his fidelity, his altruism, and 
his judgment. This confidence begets zeal, cour- 
age, and buoyancy of spirit and the entire school 
soon becomes the beneficiary of these qualities. 

Co-operation is never obtrusive, and never vaunts 
itself. It is spirit, not substance. The principal 
knows, without words, that the superintendent is 
supporting him. Fidelity needs neither explana- 
tion nor justification. It is a simple fact and is 
not to be mistaken. When people come to think 
in unison, they act in unison. In this way, the 
principal and the teachers are fused in the spirit 
of co-operation. The principal unfolds his plans 
to the teachers, and they, in turn, confide in him. 
Without such mutual confidence the school can 
not be at its best. The expression ^^team work'^ 
•among high-school teachers is fraught with deep 
significance. It implies a common purpose and a 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 245 

mutual understanding. Just here is where intelli- 
gence, confidence, good-will, and tolerance come to 
their full fruition. There must be concessions by 
principal and teachers, and concessions are easily 
made by people who are magnanimous and who 
are imbued with generous impulses. Here is where 
teachers slough oif their rights so as to rise into 
the higher realm of their privileges. 

The teacher who possesses the qualities that 
underlie co-operation is incapable of intrigue or 
chicanery; she disdains to curry favor with pupils 
at the expense of principal or colleague; she would 
never degrade herself and her high office by retail- 
ing small gossip of the school to board members or 
other citizens; she never panders to the whims and 
prejudices of pupils or parents; she is never queru- 
lous or vindictive; she would far rather be right 
than merely popular; her self-respect and nobility 
of character interdict anything that savors of syco- 
phancy; her opinions are rooted in careful thinking 
and, when she speaks, her words carry conviction; 
she is neither volatile nor voluble; and she is ever- 
more loyal to her colleagues, to the interests of the 
school, to the community which she serves and to 
her own high standards of personal and profes- 
sional conduct. 

Such a teacher can always be trusted, and this 
the principal knows full well. She can not do a 
mean thing, much less a wrong one. She does not 



246 THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLEM 

pose either to herself or to others. She rings true 
in her every word and act. Her composition is too 
fine to admit of jealousy, envy, or malice. She lives 
out in the open. She represents the very acme of 
co-operation with principal, colleagues, and pupils, 
because they all know her to be trustworthy. She 
can and does see the work of the school from the 
angles of the principal and the pupils quite as 
clearly as from her own. She composes many diffi- 
cult situations by her tact, her modest demeanor, 
and her frank sincerity. The pupils may not adore 
her, but they respect her most profoundly, and that 
is far better. In her presence pupils are at their 
best. They may reveal the other phases of their 
natures elsewhere, but never in her room. 

Effect upon pupils. — Upon the high plane of their 
respect for such a teacher the pupils meet in con- 
cord and plan together for the best interests of 
the school. She is the rallying point for co-opera- 
tion, with the principal, with the teachers, and with 
one another. There is unison of thinking and act- 
ing because of her quiet leadership. Pupils divine 
her unexpressed wishes and cause her dreams to 
come true. The authority which the principal dele- 
gates to her is never abused but is, rather, a prime 
asset to the school. She is never officious but with 
steadiness born of conscious power sways the school 
to the standards of the principal. Such a teacher 
is both an inspiration and an anchor to the school, 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 247 

and is a comfort to both superintendent and 
principal 

The power of co-operation transcends book-lore, 
nor can the academic examination discover it. It 
is too elusive to be set out on paper. It is of the 
heart, not the head. It is the ^^ aptitude for vicar- 
iousness" that makes for real greatness in the 
teacher. It can be cultivated, if the germs are 
present, but can not be evoked from barrenness. 
It is fundamental in character and, therefore, a 
boon to the school. The teacher who is endowed 
with this power can not be described as ^^ sounding 
brass or a tinkling cymbal.'' 



CHAPTER XX 
EXPRESSION 

Fundamental desire for self-expression. — Deep 
down in the primal instincts of human beings is 
the desire for self-expression. The crude drawings 
of the cave man, the hieroglyphics on obelisks and 
totem-poles, and the multiform inscriptions that 
have been exhumed in buried cities may all be cited 
as evidence. Man has always wanted to say some- 
thing whether he had much or little to say. We 
need not hark back to antiquity for illustrations. 
The names of Watts, Morse, Franklin, Howe, Edi- 
son, Burbank, Marconi, Bell, and Goethals flash 
into the thought. In the inventions and discover- 
ies of these men we find expressions of themselves. 
If we could retrace the careers of these men back 
to their school experiences and there take an inven- 
tory of their aspirations and then take a survey of 
the evolution of their self-expression, together with 
the motives that were the driving forces along the 
way, we should have an illuminating chapter on 
vital pedagogy. 

We should find, of course, that, at some point in 
the life history of each of these men, he woke up, 

248 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 249 

or found himself, or got his bearings; in short, 
that he began to give direction and meaning to his 
energy. Self-expression may have been latent np 
to this point, bnt the desire mnst have been in 
each one, none the less. We know enough of some 
of these men to realize that self-expression was a 
growth from small beginnings to great proportions. 
We have inferential knowledge, therefore, sufficient 
to warrant the conclusion that self-expression is 
capable of cultivation. It does not come with the 
on-rush of an avalanche, but by well-nigh imper- 
ceptible and, often, crucial advances. There may 
be occasional ebullitions, upheavals, or eruptions 
along the way, but the general trend of self-expres- 
sion, as shown in the development of these men, 
is steady, decorous and ever-widening. 

Psychological dictum. — The casual conception of 
expression seems to be that, before there can be 
expression there must be something to express; but 
the psychological conception is that in order to gain 
something to express we must express what we 
have. The psychological dictum, ^' There is no 
impression without expression, ' ' reinforces this very 
contention. Much is said, in these days, concern- 
ing reaction, and this theory, reduced to simple 
terms, means that whenever the mind reacts upon 
the inciting cause, the content of the mind is 
enlarged and the mind, itself, is thereby strength- 
ened. We see, at once, that this tallies exactly with 



250 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

the dictum touching expression and impression. At 
every expression, the impression becomes more 
deeply grooved, or, in other words, the mind 
expands. Hence, unless the mind reacts there is 
no development, no abiding impression. 

The educative value of the picture-film may well 
be questioned for psychological reasons. There is 
but meager opportunity for reactions. The impres- 
sion is evanescent because there can be little, if any, 
expression. If we could applaud, or express opin- 
ions as the exhibition progresses, the case would 
be different. But we are, perforce, passive during 
the entire procedure. The impression made by one 
film is so slight and superficial that the succeeding 
film serves to obliterate it. Of the one hundred 
films that we have seen we can not recall a half- 
dozen, on the instant, for the very adequate reason 
that there was no reaction, no expression. 

The lecture system. — The lecture system in vogue 
in many classes in the high school is of a piece with 
the picture-film. It provides a certain form of 
entertainment but the effect is ephemeral. There is 
no reaction and, therefore, no permanent impres- 
sion. It is altogether unpedagogical for the teacher 
to examine pupils upon topics that were brought 
to their attention merely by means of lectures. The 
same logic would admonish pupils to take their 
meals at a soda-fountain. As a review of topics 
already learned, the lecture may have some value 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 251 

in the way of recalling experiences, but in unex- 
plored territory, it is substantially futile. The 
picture-film that reviews for us some novel with 
which we are familiar has some value aside from 
mere entertainment, but we can never hope to 
become proficient in literature by means of picture- 
films. 

One of the primary functions of the school is to 
generate and stimulate the power of expression. 
This is quite as true of schools for deaf mutes as of 
others; only the mode of expression is different. 
There is comfort in the knowledge that a desire 
for expression inheres in every pupil. This knowl- 
edge simplifies the problem and from this van- 
tage-point the development of the power of expres- 
sion can proceed apace. Some studies lend them- 
selves more readily to expression than others, in 
the popular mind, but, on the psychological side, 
this notion is, at least, debatable. It would scarcely 
be germane to the present discussion to go back 
to the infancy of pupils and make inquiry as to 
whether speech or manual dexterity took preced- 
ence, in point of time. It is quite sufficient, for 
the present purpose, to observe that language is the 
natural vehicle of expression and that the organs 
of speech are useful auxiliary means. 

Expression in English teaching. — With this con- 
ception of expression clear in the mind we see, at 
once, that English has priority of claim, as an 



252 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

expression study, over drawing or manual arts. And 
yet the teacher of English is wont to envy the 
teacher of drawing, on the score that drawing is an 
expression study. True, we often find, on the ath- 
letic field, a boy who exhibits marvelous skill as a 
pitcher, but who shows a pathetic deficiency in the 
use of language. It is reasonable to conclude that, 
had this boy's speech organs been trained. as sys- 
tematically, skilfully, rationally, patiently, and per- 
severingly as his hand there would not be the dis- 
parity that is so evident. The reflection that the 
English teaching, with the odds in its favor, has 
been out-distanced in the case of this boy, by the 
manual teaching, is not particularly edifying. 

How did this boy attain such skill in manipulat- 
ing the ball! By unremitting practice. Does the 
same kind and degree of practice obtain in the Eng- 
lish class? Here we arrive at the crux of the 
whole matter. We must reply in the negative. 
Indeed, many an English class seems more an exhi- 
bition ground than a training field. The boy's 
trainer on the ballground gives a hint or a sugges- 
tion which the boy proceeds to work out in prac- 
tice, with many repetitions. But, in the Englisli 
class, the teacher corrects a mistake, often caus- 
tically, and seems to think that settles the matter 
for all time, and proceeds to the next phase of 
the lesson. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 253 

The ball-coach and the English teacher compared. 

— Moreover, the boy's coacli never does any of Ms 
practice work for him; whereas, it is very common 
in the English class to find the teacher doing all the 
reading and mnch of the reciting while the pupils 
seem to have reached the extreme limits of bore- 
dom. The teacher makes no new contributions to 
the work in hand, but drones forth phonographic 
platitudes that were acquired years ago in college, 
all of which the pupils have heard so often that 
they wilt under the ordeal. On the ball-field we 
find exemplified the psychological dictum touching 
expression and impression; but the English teacher 
is supposed to be quite as conversant with psy- 
chology as the coach. 

We inevitably judge teaching by results, and, 
thus judged, the coach seems to deserve the palm. 
We devote twelve years to the teaching of English 
in the public school but the results are often 
pathetic in their meagerness. With such results 
before us it would seem high time for us to abjure 
the methods that have proven inadequate and 
espouse more effective ones, even if we must gain 
them from the ball-coach. Looking at results, in 
both cases, one is impressed with the conviction that, 
in athletics, we have experts, but, in English work, 
we have a surplus of amateurs. In athletics we 
seem to know how; in English we seem to be try- 



254 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

ing to learn how, with but a modicum of progress. 
The educational historian of the future will be hard 
put to it to give our present methods of teaching 
English a clean pedagogical, logical, and ethical bill 
of health. 

There is just one fundamental error in the pro- 
cedure. We do not build the structure upon the 
inherent desire for expression. When the pupil 
shows an eagerness to give expression, in his own 
way, he is repressed and, in consequence, depressed, 
and his exuberant spontaneity receives a cruel 
check. Our pupils want to tell us, but we insist 
upon telling them, and, thereby, go counter to the 
principles of pedagogy with which we profess to 
be familiar. In much of our English teaching we 
try to thwart nature by interdicting free expres- 
sion. We preach, we scold, we rhapsodize, we pour 
forth inane homilies, and so consume time that 
belongs to the pupils, and thus blunt their interest 
in the study, and render them indifferent if not 
resentful. 

The meaning of order. — Order seems to be a fet- 
ich in some classes and, often, the teacher occupies 
the time in the interest of so-called order. If the 
pupils were given free rein they would disturb the 
serenity of the occasion. There is a wide differ- 
ence between order and silence. If order is con- 
strued to mean quiet then a cemetery is an orderly 
place as is also a gallery of statues. By the same 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 255 

token, an orchestra is disorderly; and the waves 
with their swash against the cliff; and the catar- 
act that gives forth its wierd music in the glen. 
The high-school pupil is instinct and vibrant with 
life, and this dynamic quality is the constituent 
material of success if rightly handled. 

But repression will not avail. There must be 
freedom of expression and any drastic curtailment 
of freedom of expression is a subversion of natural 
tendencies. Nor is expression synonymous with 
disorder; quite the contrary. The music of the 
orchestra is but systematized noise. There are no 
undulations on the surface of the Dead Sea. There 
we find serenity but it is a dead sea. The teacher 
may guide the course of expression that it may 
not take a lateral direction and fray out into trivial- 
ities, but a medley of voices in the class exercise 
is better than silence, if the silence comes from 
repression. 

Oral expression. — Just now oral expression is 
quite the vogue in the high school and that is well. 
The wonder is that we were so tardy in interpret- 
ing aright the teachings of psychology. But oral 
expression is not a new discovery. Its value may 
be more evident now than formerly, but the princi- 
ple is as old as the human race. There is danger 
that we shall treat it as a novelty, now that we 
have come into some appreciation of its value, and 
not as a fundamental in all our teaching. There 



256 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

is danger, too, that we shall attempt to standardize 
it and so render it mechanical. In our English 
work, if we consult books for our topics, instead of 
the experiences of our pupils, we shall do violence 
to the foundation principle involved. 

Every reaction requires a sensory foundation and 
what the pupils knows on a given subject enables 
him to react and thus gain a wider and deeper 
knowledge of that subject. His knowledge is the 
sensory foundation requisite for the reaction and, 
hence, oral expression must pertain to some sub- 
ject with which he is somewhat familiar. The 
topics that have been used in other classes may 
be quite unsuited to our work. We must penetrate 
the circle of the pupil's experience in order to dis- 
cover suitable topics. This requires time and effort. 
It would be easier to select topics at random from 
some printed list, but such a plan would interdict 
the highest success. 

Application to other studies. — Oral expression 
applies to the work of mathematics, science, lan- 
guage, and history quite as aptly as to the work 
in English. In the geometry class, when the boy in 
a parrot-like way- repeats the words of the book, 
we may not call that expression. That is merely 
an echo. If the boy will take issue with the state- 
ments of the book, or challenge the explanation of 
teacher or class-mate, we have an illustration of 
the sort of oral expression that has value. Too 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 257 

often, the teacher checks the pupil at the slightest 
deviation from the language of the book, as if 
any other form of statement were sacrilege. It is 
a saddening experience to sit for forty-five minutes 
in an algebra recitation and listen to post-mortem 
explanations of problems that lost their savor for 
the pupils the night before when they solved them. 
There is no life, no sparkle, no spontaneity, but a 
monotonous droning over dead issues. If the 
teacher could or would but plan some work in 
which the pupils could express themselves, the 
class exercise would redound to his credit. 

In sharp contrast, is the exhilirating experience 
in a physics laboratory where the pupils are busy 
with experiments. The teacher merely umpires 
the game, while the pupils are working with fine 
zest. They may be noisy but it is the sort of noise 
that betokens spirit, energy, industry, and, there- 
fore, progress. The pupils combat one another's 
opinions, point out errors, repeat processes at the 
suggestion of others, verify their own conclusions, 
and, in every word and act, exemplify the sort of 
expression that makes for lasting impression. The 
pupils are never idle, never listless, and, best of 
all, never bored. In this room, the teacher dupli- 
cates the conduct of the coach on the ball-ground; 
he merely gives the impetus and gives the pupils 
freedom for expression. 

Wliat is done in this room can be done in the 



258 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

history class, and often is done. There are many 
class-exercises in history that are veritable hives 
of industry and animation, quietly but incisively 
directed. The teacher says but little while the 
pupils speak much. They have much to say that 
is worth hearing, that is their own and not a mere 
echo of the book. Moreover, the more they say 
the more they have to say and the better they can 
say it. There is a generous emulation that serves 
to reinforce and clarify the facts that the book 
affords. They challenge, and criticise, and amplify 
until each one comes to feel a proprietary interest 
in the accumulated knowledges of the entire class. 
There is attrition of mind with mind that abrades 
crudeness and gives polish and tone. 

Factors in expression. — In such an exercise the 
body, the face, the eyes, the lips, and the hands all 
become eloquent as means of expression and all 
these serve to reinforce the voice. The picture^ 
film has taught the valuable lesson that there may 
be eloquence in the absence of the spoken word 
and the school will do well to take this lesson to 
heart. The stage demands the education of body, 
hands, face, and eyes but the school has almost 
wholly ignored these auxiliaries of expression. 
We are so intent upon mere words in our school 
practices that we seem to hold all else as of small 
moment. We think in terms of problems, lines, 
paragraphs, and pages as if these comprised the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOBLFJ*! 259 

sum total of human endeavor. If the ungainly 
boy could be given freedom in the use of his feet 
and hands, there would ensue greater freedom of 
spirit that would manifest itself in the entire range 
of self-expression. 

Written work. — In written expression there is 
much random, aimless, and perfunctory work done, 
especially in the class-exercises in English. The 
subjects assigned have little or no connection with 
the pupils' natural aptitudes or experiences, and 
the corrected papers are handed back with an air 
of finality that seems to proclaim the end of a dis- 
agreeable task. The red ink of the teacher seems 
a challenge to the pupil's combativeness, and he 
destroys the paper with a degree of promptness 
that is more forceful than polite. If, to quote 
again, "Art is the expression of man's joy in his 
work," the written exercise should, somehow, be 
made the occasion for joy if it is finally to emerge 
in the artistic. 

Here, again, must be found the sensory founda- 
tion or there will be no effective reaction. To ask 
a pupil who has no knowledge of chemistry to 
write on "The Molecular Theory" is both futile 
and foolish. Indeed, it is not an exercise in expres- 
sion at all but merely a matter of copying from 
the encyclopedia. In one English class the teacher 
always joined with her pupils in writing upon 
every general subject that she assigned and sub- 



260 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

mitted lier paper, along with the others, for com- 
ment and correction. This plan went far toward 
removing the barrier between teacher and pnpils 
by generating a spirit of co-operation. 

The teacher as a producer. — Pupils have a right 
to wonder what the teacher has ever written that 
gives her a w^arrant to be a critic of the literary 
masterpieces. If- she conld show some synthetic 
work they wonld have greater confidence in her 
analytic work. To them she seems to have enough 
theories to write a book that would electrify the 
worlcl but the libraries yield forth no product of 
her pen. She is thrown into a state of pitiful 
perturbation by a request for a paper for a club 
of literary people and yet she assigns subjects to 
her pupils, week after week, with the very acme 
of nonchalance. 

To the pupils she seems the veriest theorist and 
they would be glad to exchange places with her 
for a time, glad of the chance to test her theories 
on herself. This feeling would largely vanish if 
she would assign topics within the range of their 
experiences, for, in that case, expression would be 
easy and natural and they would be only too glad 
to win success in such a pleasant way. Too often 
topics are assigned in the hope that pupils will get 
information. The truth is that writing is done to 
give information. Thus the teacher does violence 
to the primary purpose of writing. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 261 

It would require an inspired pen to do half-way 
justice to tliat style of expression that obtains in 
the exercise commonly called Latin prose composi- 
tion. As a rule, it is neither composition nor Latin 
— whatever else it may be. It is certainly not self- 
expression; neither is it art if art is attended with 
joy. Instead of being joyous, it is usually so 
lugubrious as to seem well-nigh funereal. Only 
the very rare teacher imbues this exercise with joy 
and makes it an occasion of self-expression. In 
general, the exercise seems to belong to puzzledom, 
and have but little to do in the way of cultivating 
the power of expression. 

We are still groping in the twilight of possibili- 
ties connected with the whole subject of expression. 
The home is an expression of the mistress of the 
home. In the furnishings, the .decorations, and the 
administering she expresses herself, and people, 
instinctively, judge her by a survey of her home. 
We may run the entire gamut of society and find 
that the same principle obtains. People are 
expressing themselves in business, in trade, in pro- 
fessions, and in their manner of daily living. In 
music, in art, in public and private libraries, in 
the conditions that prevail in cities, towns, and 
country, we find expressions of the citizens. It is 
incumbent upon the school, therefore, to take cog- 
nizance of these facts and so administer the school 
activities that they will function in right expres- 
sion. 



CHAPTER XXI 
TRAINING FOE LEISURE 

Education and old age. — A man who has trav- 
eled often and widely says that he is not specially 
fond of traveling bnt travels that he may not have 
an uninteresting old age. He argnes that there is 
no good reason why a person who has reached old 
age should be isolated in the chimney-corner if a 
fair amount of diligence has been practiced in 
preparation for this period of leisure. A woman 
of ninety-three years says she has retired from 
active employments and now proposes for herself 
a period of pleasure reading the Bible and Shakes- 
peare. If she had failed to make preparation for 
this time of leisure, these closing years might not 
be a time of pleasure either to herself or to those 
about her. In such a situation the ability to extract 
pleasure from the Bible and Shakespeare is ample 
compensation for all the efforts put forth to acquire 
the reading habit. 

On a boat which plies on Loch Katrine a some- 
what infirm old gentleman was the center of 
interest as he quoted ^'The Lady of the Lake." 
The small talk and hilarity of younger people soon 

262 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 263 

abdicated in favor of the old gentleman's reciting 
and all the passengers esteemed it a rare privilege 
to share his poetic attainments. Cato, Michael 
Angelo, Titian, Tennyson, and John Burroughs 
exemplify old age that is attractive because worth- 
ily employed. These men enjoyed working in old 
age because work had become their law of life. 
The industry of their later years was but the per- 
sistence of the habit of industry. They could find 
neither time nor place for a discontinuance of their 
activities. The mere reminiscencer is in danger of 
becoming a reminiscence. 

If pupils of the high school at the time of gradu- 
ation should lose all their acquired knowledges but 
still retain their inclination and ability to conserve 
their leisure time, we should account the years 
well spent that had been devoted to high-school 
activities. This being true, it follows that the 
fitting of people to employ their leisure time profit- 
ably is a goal worthy of our best endeavors. In- 
deed, this should be one of the major aims of the 
school. Since habits tend to persist, if the school 
can inculcate this habit of utilizing leisure in a 
profitable way, our graduates will have many 
occasions for gratitude to the school throughout 
life. 

The waste of time. — If the leisure hours that are 
virtually wasted by the people of the community 
could be deflected to and concentrated upon worthy 



264 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

work, the advantages to the people themselves, and 
to the community as a whole can scarcely be 
estimated. The avidity for various forms of diver- 
sion in leisure hours is conclusive evidence of a 
lack of definite plans and purposes. People have 
been known to inveigh against the avocations of 
teachers on the specious pretext that all their time 
is needed for their vocation. Such people fail to 
realize that these avocations conserve health of 
body and mind, give buoyancy to the spirit, and 
thus reinforce and make more effective the regular 
work of teachers. Genius is but another name for 
industry in conserving minutes and hours. We 
are all debtors to the men and womicn of history 
who utilized the time that might have been frit- 
tered away in giving the best we have in literature, 
art, music, discoveries, and inventions. 

The economic value. — Economists predict that, 
by reason of the improvements in machinery, the 
working day will be reduced to six hours and many 
look upon the final realization of this prediction 
as a great boon to working people, in view of the 
fact that they will have two hours added to their 
leisure time. Whether this addition will be a 
blessing or the reverse depends upon the use which 
they make of the time. Leisure is a positive detri- 
ment to some people because of their inability to 
use it aright. Many a man is less efficient on the 
day succeeding a holiday because of his misuse 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 265 

of Ms leisure. On holidays additions are made to 
the police force and greater diligence must be 
exercised in order that the day may not prove a 
recession of civilization. 

The day is divided, in the popular mind, into 
three equal divisions of eight hours each. There 
are eight hours for work, eight for sleep, and eight 
of leisure. These hours of leisure are fraught with 
well-nigh incalculable possibilities for good or evil. 
When people are either sleeping or working they 
are little liable to prove a menace to society; but, 
in their hours of leisure, they may work great 
harm. If all men and women who work in shops, 
factories, offices, stores, and on the farm, were 
eager to resume in the evening the useful work 
which they discontinued in the morning when they 
went to their daily tasks, the world would exper- 
ience a sudden reformation, and legislative bodies 
would find their work greatly reduced and simpli- 
fied. There would be automatic adjustment of 
many questions that now disturb and distress. 
Resorts would close for want of patrons. 

Diversions. — Many diversions that obtain in the 
community are made use of as a sort of soporific 
to assuage that restlessness that is the concomitant 
of idleness. The drink habit is contracted by some 
men because idleness palls upon them and they 
have but meager resources upon which to draw to 
find an antidote for their ennui. One of the uses 



266 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

of the picture-film is to divert the attention of 
people from themselves and thus afford a respite 
from a contemplation that does not prove specially 
edifying. They are quite willing to pay for this 
respite, and, especially, since the means at hand are 
accounted most respectable. Far better the pic- 
ture-film than many another sort of diversion even 
if their constant patronage does convict people 
of a lack of resourcefulness. 

People judged by their avocations. — It would 
seem to be quite feasible to classify people accord- 
ing to the manner in which they spend their leisure. 
Knowing that Elihu Burrit became proficient in 
eleven languages, we care but little whether he was 
a blacksmith, a farmer, or a lawyer; and, knowing 
that Eoby wrote his Latin Grammar outside busi- 
ness hours, we are not particular as to the nature 
of his business. We classify these men according 
to their avocations, and not their vocations. There 
is no need for a curfew bell in the case of people 
whose avocations will bear close and critical inspec- 
tion. The hand-painted china, which adds to the 
attractiveness of the home, proclaims the mistress 
of that house an adept in the use of her leisure 
time, and we instinctively give her high rank as a 
home-maker, without inquiring particularly as to 
her other accomplishments. 

The young lady who, at the age of nineteen, had 
achieved her high-school diploma and, also, dis- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 267 

tinction as a violin artist had, simultaneously, 
attained an equal accomplishment in the way of 
developing the ability to employ her leisure effec- 
tively. She did not need to seek extraneous forms 
of entertainment; she could entertain not only her- 
self but her friends as well. The study of music 
affords large possibilities as an avocation, not only 
for young people but, equally, for their parents. 
Indeed there are homes in which music is the nexus 
that binds all members of the family together each 
evening in a common interest. They all anticipate 
the evening practice with a glow of interest that 
carries them pleasantly through the regular work 
of the day. Besides, there is a desire to excel on 
the part of each member of the family that makes 
for the success of the entire orchestra. 

The boy of fourteen who produced one hundred 
and fifty-three bushels of corn on an acre and so 
won the championship in his state felt no need 
for fictitious diversions during the summer vaca- 
tion. He was pleasantly busy all the while culti- 
vating his crop and watching narrowly and sympa- 
thetically the growth of each stalk. The value of 
this training was far in excess of the value of the 
corn. The corn was transient, but the training for 
leisure was permanent. In explaining his processes 
to others, he was all animation and it was evident 
that he had extracted keen pleasure from his exper- 
iences. In the process of corn-raising, this boy 



268 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

learned how to direct and discipline liis own pow- 
ers, and this far exceeds in real value the accom- 
plishment of the same purpose by external agencies. 
He became a maker of precedent instead of a mere 
follower. 

Incidentally, this boy taught the men of the 
neighborhood, including his own father, how to 
produce a large yield of corn, and so experienced 
the exultation of incipient leadership. In this 
experience we find a solution of the problem touch- 
ing the depopulation of the country. Given such 
white-heat interest as intensive farming evoked in 
this lad and the gew-gaw fictions of the city are 
powerless to lure him to them. Farmers have 
ready at hand the means that can be made effective 
in rendering their boys an asset to country-life. 
By allotting to their boys plots of ground to be 
used as their own, they supply the motive element 
that will keep the boys on the farm, or bring them 
back at the completion of their college work. The 
boy of high-school age is a person, and the father 
does wisely to treat him as such. When this reali- 
zation of personal entity comes to boys and girls, 
paternalism is fraught with hazard. They want 
scope for their initiative, and the restraints of 
childhood annoy them. 

Recreative work. — Summer camps and the like 
have their value, but they are not comparable to 
those employments that call for initiative and 



THE HIGH SCHOOn PROBLEM 269 

afford freedom of action to the boy in working 
out real problems in obedience to Ms own behests. 
It is irksome to him to live by rote. He would 
rather make play of his work than work of his 
play. If he is competing for a prize for the most 
artistic lawn, the best garden, or the cleanest street, 
he feels that he is having to do with real things 
and, at the close of the day, he has the satisfaction 
of contemplating real achievements. The contem- 
plation of such achievements is inspiriting and gen- 
erates ze.al for the next stage of progress. He will 
gladly walk a mile to secure a tool with which to 
cultivate his garden, but to walk a mile at the 
dictation of some monitor seems to him altogether 
bootless. He wants to feel that he is the proprietor 
of earth, air, sky, forest, stream, time, space, and, 
especially, his own powers. 

Practical suggestions. — All these matters are 
interwoven in all plans that concern themselves 
with training for leisure. Every agency in the 
scheme of such training must attach itself to the 
natural tendencies of the people for whose leisure 
the plans are made. Hothouse methods will not 
avail in such a scheme. High-school pupils who 
are musically inclined will readily combine in the 
form of a band or orchestra, under wise guidance, 
and practice in music will at once preempt their 
leisure hours. Nor will this practice militate 
against their regular work. Quite the contrary. 



270 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

The mental application, so necessary to success in 
their music, will manifest itself in the regular 
class-work. Instead of dissipating their energies 
in diversions that have no profit, these young 
people devote their leisure to an exercise that is, 
at once, agreeable, and that affords occasion for 
concentration of mind. In fact, all employments 
of leisure ought to fertilize the mind for greater 
efficiency in the performance of regular tasks. 

The man who devotes his evening to the perusal 
of a book that stimulates thought will come to his 
task the following day with a degree of mental 
alertness that will make for greater success. Had 
he spent the evening in idleness, he would have 
missed the tonic which the book afforded and his 
work would have been less efficient. In short, the 
avocation should always reinforce the vocation. 
A group of young women in a normal school who 
devoted the noon intermission to needlework said 
they found this form of recreation helpful to the 
work of the afternoon. A woman, upon whom 
devolves the many cares connected with the admin- 
istration of the home for a large family, makes it 
a point to practice a difficult musical composition 
each evening, and rises from the piano rested and 
refreshed. 

It is a far cry from the colored supplement to 
the Book of Job. If the school could but transfer 
to the latter even a moiety of the devotees of the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 271 

former, the achievement would be well worth while. 
Certainly there is a demand for the colored supple- 
ment and the newspapers are clearly within their 
rights in catering to this demand, but the school 
is competent to stimulate a demand for things that 
have a higher value as to nutritive qualities. It is 
nothing short of pathetic to see a man or woman 
of mature years devoting leisure hours to such 
divertisements, with music, art, history, literature 
and science within easy call. There is no inclina- 
tion to try to locate responsibility for this condi- 
tion and least of all to lay any charge at the door 
of the school; but, it is pertinent to remark that 
the school has an inspiring opportunity to render 
such conditions impossible for the coming genera- 
tions. 

Indirect methods. — Suggestion is more effec- 
tive than a command in the way of directing the 
energies of pupils into productive channels during 
their hours of leisure. Indirection will succeed 
where direct methods will fail. The teacher may 
wonder how many books there are in the Bible, 
how many plays Shakespeare wrote, how many 
members of Congress there are, how many mem- 
bers in the Legislature, what is the order of pro- 
cedure in a court trial, who are the members of 
the Cabinet — and the information will soon be 
forthcoming. As a suggestion, these matters stimu- 
late curiosity, whereas, as an assignment they 



272 THE HIGH SCHOOL PKOBLEM 

would evoke questions as to their pertinency. By 
a like method of suggestion, the teacher may 
wonder whether Tennyson's religious convictions 
may be discovered from reading his poems, what 
is meant by the poetry of the Psalms, what is the 
historical background of Kipling's '^Kecessional," 
and what methods obtained in operating the ^^Un- 
derground Railroad." From the fertile resources 
of some home, or some library, the answers will 
be obtained and many people will profit by the 
investigations. 

Contests and exhibits. — The corn contests and 
baking contests are producing beneficient effects 
upon individuals and upon communities. These 
contests provide useful employment for leisure 
hours and promote industry that becomes habitual 
by reason of the obvious benefits. The girl who 
acquires skill in baking and receives a prize feels 
that such work has been exalted to the rank of 
an accomplishment and she, herself, will acquit 
such work of the charge of drudgery. Such a 
shifting of values redounds to the advantage of 
all phases of home economics and the entire com- 
munity is the beneficiary. The young people who 
participate in those contests come into a personal 
realization of the dignity of work and become its 
ardent champions. To them work has come to be 
a habit through processes that afforded keen 
pleasure. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 273 

When such contests are made integral phases of 
social center work they easily point the way to 
other enterprises in which parents and pupils may 
become participants. Teachers find here a fertile 
field of endeavor, and one that produces abund- 
antly in providing for leisure. Community meet- 
ings provide opportunities for utilizing the leisure- 
hour achievements of all ages and classes, whether 
music, home economics, farming, or literary excel- 
lence. Indeed, it is the province of the promoters to 
discover excellence in any and every activity and 
bring it to the attention of the community by 
means of such meetings. Every prize that is 
awarded, and every victory achieved becomes a 
stimulus to endeavor on the part of many others 
to make their leisure time bring to them a like 
distinction. In such meetings the interests of the 
two democracies are fused to the advantage of 
both and parents unite, in hearty accord, with 
pupils and teachers, in working for the well-being 
of society. 



CHAPTER XXII 
MORAL TRAINING 

The sensory foundation. — If we grant the valid- 
ity of the principles of psychology in the general 
purview of training we must concede at once that 
they are equally valid in moral training. Seeing 
that a sensory foundation lies back of every reac- 
tion to the facts of history, science, and language, 
so it is equally true that a sensory foundation con- 
ditions every reaction in the realm of morals. 
There is a germ of good in every normal person, 
and it is this germ that constitutes the sensory 
foundation. This germ is variously styled moral 
sense, divine essence, and the quality that different 
tiates man from the lower animals. By whatever 
name it is called, we must admit its existence and 
realize that it furnishes the point of departure 
in any discussion that appertains to moral 
training. 

As Dr. Stray er has so aptly said, ^'School educa- 
tion begins not with the ignorance of the child, 
but with his knowledge.'^ We must build upon 
what the pupil already knows; we must extend 
and expand the circle of his knowledge, whether 
of history, mathematics, or morality. The external 

274 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 275 

stimuli must be related to the knowledge which 
the learner already possesses, or there will ensue 
no reaction, and the mind will remain inert. In 
such case, the circle of knowledge does not expand. 
In morality, as in geography, we must proceed 
from the known to the related unknown. The 
inherent moral sense, undeveloped though it be, 
is the capital which we invest in this important 
enterprise. If we can but bring this moral sense 
to a high state of development we need not con- 
cern ourselves with the process of casting out 
devils, for the circle of morality will be large 
enough and strong enough to crowd the devils out. 
In other words, the moral sense will dominate 
the life. 

The inadequacy of precepts. — The notion is quite 
prevalent that morality is to be inculcated by 
means of precepts and many teachers proceed upon 
this assumption. Such teachers ignore, apparently, 
the dictum of psychology touching expression and 
impression. In morals, as in all else, the expression 
is the reaction which tends to deepen the impres- 
sion and groove it into a habit. The more expres- 
sion that is generated, the deeper the impression 
and the more abiding. In this view, mere precepts 
are unavailing because they produce no reactions. 
They have a close analogy to the picture-film in 
that they afford no opportunity for expression. 
In the case of adolescents, especially, moral precepts 



276 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

become irksome. They heard these precepts dur- 
ing their entire childhood and now that they are 
emerging into the estate of manhood and woman- 
hood the regime of childhood does not appeal to 
them. Just here, perhaps, may be found an expla- 
nation of the exodus from the Sunday school that 
is noticeable at the age of adolescence. 

The nature of adolescents. — Young people of 
high-school age are dynamic and want to be doers 
and not mere hearers. Their energy clamors for 
expression and any curtailment of expression seems 
to them a slight upon their manhood and woman- 
hood. They would far rather be up and doing 
than listening to precepts. In their new outlook 
upon life, these precepts seem to them ancient 
history and the past, in their thinking, feeling, and 
living, is not at all comparable to the present. 
They are distinctly sentient, at this age, and alto- 
gether alert to the things of the present. They 
yearn to reach and to respond to the things about 
them. Their sentient and dynamic qualities are 
bearing them away from tradition. The eternal 
verities have not, as yet, found a place in their 
scheme of life. They are in a state of transition 
and their quest is for the Promised Land. Just 
what or where this is they do not know, but are 
quite willing to make the discovery, and it is the 
high privilege of the teacher to be their leader in 
this laudable quest. 



THE man school problem 277 

The content of goodness. — People differ widely 
in their conceptions as to the content of goodness 
or morality. Some esteem it the mere absence of 
vice; others a sort of spiritual anaemia; and still 
others regard it as a soul gone blind. If we revert 
to the episode of the Burning Bush we shall realize 
that it is none of these; and, besides, the Great 
Teacher gave a definition for all time when he 
said ''I must be about my Father's business." 
Morality is not negative, but positive. Groodness 
is not lethargy, but action. Moral training is not 
a system of pruning, but of promulgating growth. 
If we cultivate the growing crop, the weeds will 
disappear. Moses responded to the call for service 
and the Burning Bush grew into the Tree of Life. 

The psychological view. — The training for moral 
conduct, then, is not such a complex matter as 
might, at first, appear. It is the process of induc- 
ing action through the proper presentation of the 
right external stimuli. It is the process of deepen- 
ing impression through right expression. But the 
very simplicity of the problem, as thus stated, 
renders it all the more perplexing. We must know 
the extent of each learner's sensory foundation; 
we must know the right sort of stimuli; we must 
know how to present them in order to produce the 
greatest reaction; we must know how to render 
reactions cumulative; and we must know how to 
make these reactions steady and continuous rather 



278 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

than spasmodic. The teacher who can do these 
things effectively, can lay claim to some skill iii 
moral training; but the teacher who fails in either 
of these items will find occasion for serious reflec- 
tion. In the case of trees, we find year-rings that 
indicate periodic growths ; but, in the case of people, 
we find no such lines of demarcation. We may feel 
that the pupil is emerging into a more hopeful and 
wholesome state, but the process eludes our closest 
scrutiny. There is no spiritual cyclometer by 
which we may test the rate of progress. We need 
large faith in the pupil and in the integrity of 
our methods of teaching. 

Moral training through regular studies.— By no 
stretch of the imagination can we dissociate moral 
training from the formal studies of the school. On 
the contrary, moral training is enmeshed in every 
activity of the school whether on the playground 
or in the class-room. Just as there is no line of 
cleavage between English and history, so there is 
none between geometry and morals. When a 
mathematical fact is presented in such a manner 
that the mind of the pupil reacts upon it, leaps 
toward it, that pupil is receiving a lesson in verac- 
ity for the very cogent reason that he reacted 
upon a part of the great body of truth. What we 
call the scientific attitude of mind is nothing other 
than a certain development of the power to recog- 
nize truth with somewhat of nice discrimination. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 279 

Whenever a pupil solves liis problem correctly lie 
is merely telling the truth to those around him, 
and, all in good time, truth-telling becomes habit- 
ual. Spelling and reading are, in the same way, 
exercises in truth-telling. In reading, the pupil 
tells the truth only when he puts into the passage 
just what the author intended. To do this, he 
must reconstitute the sentiments of the author at 
the moment of writing. The defections in this 
sort of truth-telling among high-school pupils are 
both numerous and depressing. Many pupils have 
yet to acquire the noble accomplishment of reading. 
Platitudes and homilies. — The method of setting 
out the stimuli and the character of the stimuli 
presented have much to do in the way of determin- 
ing the character of reaction. Moral platitudes 
lull the minds to repose instead of stimulating them. 
And yet there are teachers, here and there, who 
are much given to such preachments, utterly ignor- 
ing the teachings of psychology. These hackneyed 
homilies bore pupils inexpressibly, but they are 
tolerant of the teacher's foibles and exert them- 
selves to be outwardly polite. Thus they have a 
lesson in simulation, which is not accounted a 
moral virtue, simply because the teacher failed to 
observe a fundamental principle of elementary 
pedagogy. Had the pupil expressed his real feel- 
ing in the way of hurling missiles, he would have 
been expelled as a moral pervert or an incorrigible, 



280 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

while the teacher would have been acquitted of 
wrong. Such is the travesty of fair-play, at times, 
in school administration. Here the teacher was 
the real offender, and the pupil but expressed his 
honest feelings. He might easily arrive at the 
judgment that honesty is not the best policy. 

This supposed case is presented as typical of 
many flagrant violations of pedagogic principles 
for which the pupil pays the penalty in the way of 
a wrench of his moral sense. Pupils estimate real 
values to a nicety and, in such a case as has been 
cited, they know that the teacher is posing and 
they naturally have a feeling of resentment. They 
feel that the teacher is discounting their per- 
spicacity and indignation follows inevitably. The 
damage to the moral sense of the pupils, in such a 
case, far overtops all the good that can possibly 
come from the academic work of the lesson, and 
they had been in better case had there been no 
lesson at all. When pupils go counter to the 
teacher's preconceptions there is often a tendency 
to classify their conduct as moral obliquity even 
though she, herself, was the inciting cause. She 
demands apologies but never apologizes. It is 
much easier to be a dogmatist than a teacher. 

Sincerity of the teacher. — A pupil's moral nature 
does not expand in an atmosphere that is gener- 
ated by the teacher's posing as a paragon of all 
the virtues. He has had little or no experience of 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 281 

paragons and becomes uncomfortable in the pres- 
ence of one. He prefers a wholesome hnman being 
to a paragon. Besides, he suspects the genuineness 
of the teacher 's pretensions and proceeds to remove 
the mask. When he finally discovers insincerity, 
he thinks back over the long array of pre- 
cepts that she has poured forth on the subjects of 
sincerity, integrity, candor, frankness, and truth, 
and then wonders who is to exemplify these quali- 
ties when the teacher fails. The boy reacts upon 
that which is straight, and clean, and staunch but 
his moral nature shrinks from the tortuous, the 
flaccid, and the vapid. If we hope to inculcate 
moral fiber we need to exercise great care in the 
matter of external stimuli. 

Altruism in moral training. — The shifting from 
the egoistic to the altruistic motive occurs, in gen- 
eral, at high-school age and this shifting affords 
an advantageous opportunity for moral training. 
In casting about for some objective for their ebul- 
lient energies pupils find it outside of themselves 
and every expression of their energy upon this 
objective enlarges their sense of moral responsi- 
bility. Their dreams and their aspirations extend 
beyond the limits of the home and the school and 
their energies follow close in the wake of their 
aspirations. This tendency may be utilized to 
advantage by the teacher. Enterprises looking to 
civic betterment will find willing hands and brains. 



282 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

In times of community misfortunes they respond 
with alacrity and render intelligent and faithful 
service. Distress and poverty never appeal to 
them in vain. Such reactions enlarge and deepen 
their altruistic impulses and make for more effec- 
tive citizenship. 

The objectives for their altruism are many and 
varied. These may readily be discovered by the 
teacher, and the pupils, themselves, will aid in the 
discovery. Native tendencies will point the way 
toward the right objective. The boy who once 
suffered an accident will readily respond to calls 
for help in like situations. His experiences have 
given him the sensory foundation for prompt reac- 
tions and every such reaction reinforces his moral 
stamina. Flowers for a teacher or school-mate 
who is ill will appear as if by magic at a mere 
suggestion. Benevolent conspiracies in favor of an 
unfortunate school-mate will bind pupils in a closer 
union and enlarge their capacity for sympathetic 
service. To the high-school pupils in several com- 
munities is due a large share of the credit for new 
buildings. They planned campaigns in favor of 
bond issues and presented matters so intelligently 
and so amiably that voters were captivated and 
revised their intentions. 

Altruism illustrated. — In a certain city there 
came financial stress and a shortening of the school 
year seemed imminent. As a heroic measure of 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 283 

relief appeals were made to citizens for voluntary 
contributions with which to avert the impending 
disaster. The pupils sensed the full import of the 
enterprise and became eager to contribute in some 
substantial way. Their parents were contributing 
to the fund to the full extent of their ability and 
money contributions by the pupils were clearly out 
of the question. After mature deliberation a 
committee waited upon the superintendent and 
proposed that they be given the privilege of caring 
for the study-room, thus dispensing with the ser- 
vices of a teacher. This was readily acceded to 
and during the entire semester they had full con- 
trol of the study-room with no slightest semblance 
of disorder. In this way they effected a saving 
of several hundred dollars. It must be obvious 
that the moral phase of such an altruistic enter- 
prise far outweighed the monetary consideration. 
Young people who acquire that sort of moral ballast 
will not capsize in a gale. 

Under the stimulus of altruistic motives pupils 
can be brought to feel that the entire community 
is their legitimate province and that whatever 
concerns the well-being of the community is, in 
some measure, their responsibility. Once they get 
thinking of community sanitation and health, the 
study of physiology in the school will take on a 
new and fuller meaning and the intensity of their 
work will testify to their sincerity. Thus they 



284 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

broaden out into citizens of the larger democracy 
while they are engaged at their tasks in the smaller. 
Thus, too, they are developing a social conscious- 
ness and they come to realize that, in order to be 
good in the best sense, they must be good for 
something. Their energies make new excursions 
into the realm of service and every such expression 
has a reflex influence that gives poise and stability. 
The tramp on the highway is not only not a good 
citizen but his manner of life accelerates degenera- 
tion. His motives are altogether egoistic and he, 
on that score, is an incubus upon society, a pen- 
sioner upon its resources. He may have generous 
impulses but they are spasmodic because they 
lack an objective. 

Habit in moral training. — In the Latin, char- 
acter is the plural of habit and reflection will verify 
this conception. The sum of our habitual acts 
constitutes character. Hence, we need to concern 
ourselves with the process of producing reactions 
to right stimuli with such frequency that they will 
groove into a habit. It requires a strong tempta- 
tion to dethrone habit. In our school practices, 
we are inclined to bestow the meed of praise upon 
cleverness, but this quality may prove a liability 
instead of an asset. Cleverness may be volatile, 
and so interdict the formation of habit. The 
plodder often wins through in the game of life 
where the genius fails. The dull boy who must, 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 285 

perforce, work unremittingiy at liis tasks is, 
tliereby, forming habits which combine into char- 
acter that renders him a sterling- citizen. To him 
fidelity becomes a habit ; otherwise it is not fidelity. 
If trnth-telling is a habit, then it is involuntary 
and spontaneous. No one ever challenges the verac- 
ity of a man with whom truth-telling is known to 
be habitual. Honesty cannot exist as a mere policy. 
It must be more than that to be honesty. It must 
be a habit. The man who has the habit of honesty 
does not concern himself with consequences. To 
him there is but one course to pursue, and he goes 
straight forward in that course. 

Summary. — By no means does moral training 
consist of external applications. It must concern 
itself with fundamentals. Nor can it be segre- 
gated. It is all-pervasive. Reactions, that will 
ultimately groove into habits, may be generated by 
a mere suggestion, the tone of the teacher ^s voice, 
a movement of the body, or a casual illustration. 
So that it is well to bear in mind that the teacher's 
every look, word, accent, and movement may be 
an element in the process of moral training and 
that all these elements are making for the weal of 
the larger democracy throughout the years. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
THE HIGH-SCHOOL PROBLEM 

Recapulation. — The foregoing chapters have been 
written to small purpose if they have failed to 
produce a conviction that the high school has 
not fully realized its possibilities, either in the 
scope, or in the character of its work. We have 
become so accustomed to boasting of our achieve- 
ments in high-school work that, in our apparent 
obsession, we have ignored, in some measure, our 
opportunities and responsibilities. We seem more 
concerned with what is than what might be. There 
is no occasion to minimize our achievements in an 
attempt to magnify and come into a full apprecia- 
tion of our opportunities. The manufacturer of 
automobiles does not spend time congratulating 
himself upon his achievements; he is too busy 
contemplating improvements. If all teachers were 
equal to the best ones, in point of progressiveness, 
then the high school would bear a close analogy 
to the automobile factory. The school would then 
be doing its utmost to make each year's model 
superior to its immediate predecessor. 

Importance of the teacher. — Eight here we find 
the crux of the matter and can locate the trouble. 

286 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 287 

Some teachers are a drag upon progress and so 
reduce the average of teaching ability and leader- 
ship. This is said in all kindness. Indeed, there 
need be no thought of unkindness in stating a 
patent truth. The surgeon is kind in his diagnosis 
and in performing the operation that is to con- 
serve life and health. A hundred names of such 
sub-normal teachers could be given off-hand, if 
such a course were necessary. Their sub-normality 
becomes all the more evident when they are com- 
pared, as to effectiveness, with other teachers of 
the same schools. One school man of nation-wide 
renown calls such teachers barnacles. Certain it 
is that they impede the progress of the educational 
ship. The distressing fact is that school authori- 
ties lack the courage to scrape the bottom of the 
ship. 

Static and dynamic teachers. — In general, it may 
be truthfully stated that the larger the school the 
greater the number of such teachers. This may be 
accounted for by the fact that the tenure of posi- 
tion in such schools is more secure; and this, in 
turn, arises from the fact that when they reach 
the large high school there is nothing beyond to 
lure them forward. They seem to have reached 
the land of heart's desire and to allow their aspira- 
tions to subside. Many have vitality and enterprise 
sufficient to resist the temptation to settle down; 
and such teachers are the motive-power of the 



288 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

school. When the farmer attains all the acres 
included in his aspirations, he does one of two 
things; he either settles down or, else, he enters 
upon a period of intensive farming, making the 
acres he has acquired more and more fertile. If 
he does the former, he is soon called land-poor; if 
the latter he is soon called the model farmer. The 
teachers under consideration have the capacity 
and the training to become counterparts of the 
model farmer; but, instead of that, they settle 
down, with all the rich acreage of opportunities 
about them and become land-poor. They simply 
quit growing and exemplify arrested development. 
Many men teachers seek positions in the large 
high schools that they may live in ease and com- 
fort. They adduce many specious pretexts for 
their decision, such as better social advantages, 
better educational opportunities, better library 
facilities, proximity to the college for graduate 
work, and others of like import, but, very often, 
these are mere justifications of a predetermined 
course. They prefer a place among the reserves 
to the moil and toil of the firing squad. They soon 
become acclimated and are heard of no more. The 
hours are easy; the work mainly routine; responsi- 
bility is slight; and they have more time for novel- 
reading. Now and then, one emerges from his 
obscurity and does some work that is really dis- 
tinctive, but, for the most part, they pursue the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 289 

even tenor of their ways imperturbable and serene. 
Tlieir line of conduct would indicate that they are 
millionaires who, in their quasi-retirement, seek 
some light and agreeable employment to avert 
ennui. 

Periodically they become galvanic and this con- 
dition presages a movement for an increase of 
salaries. This accomplished, they lapse into their 
normal state until such time as the auspices seem 
favorable for another increase. Men of this type, 
when they hold meetings, inveigh against college 
domination and compare themselves with college 
professors to the disparagement of the latter, little 
realizing that many of these professors were for- 
merly teachers in high schools and achieved such 
distinction in that field of endeavor that they were 
invited to positions in the college. They have 
another grievance against college professors in that 
they write so many of the text-books for the high 
school. These men cannot or will not write the 
books themselves and then complain because the 
college professors can and do write them. The 
fact is they are not students at all, either in an 
academic or in a professional sense and so produce 
nothing. Too few text-books issue from high 
schools, considering the opportunities afforded for 
their evolution. 

Dead-line teachers. — The teachers, men and 
women, to whom the foregoing characterization 



290 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

applies are said to liave reached the dead-line. 
Some reach this destination early in their profes- 
sional life, others later, and very many never reach 
it at all. These are the very elect and their failure 
to reach the dead-line is altogether to their credit. 
They have the same temptations as the others but 
they are dynamic and so resist these temptations 
to the great advantage of themselves and the 
school. Upon retiring, of his own volition, from 
a large city high school of which he had been prin- 
cipal for thirty-nine years, a man began the study 
of French and, in two years, became proficient in 
reading and speaking the language. Such a man 
never approaches the dead-line. 

The symptoms of decline. — The symptoms of 
decline in those who do reach this condition 
are unmistakable. In the first place, they delude 
themselves with the notion that they are really 
progressive even though a thorough self-examina- 
tion would prove the contrary. Their colleagues 
and the public know that their teaching is an exact 
duplicate of last year's work. Some have called 
them race-track teachers because they go around 
and around, year after year, on the same track and 
in the same way. They move up and down and 
think they are moving forward. While others go 
forward in the marching column, they are content 
to do camp-duty. They are static, while others are 
dynamic; they are centripetal while others are 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 291 

centrifugal. They lull themselves to repose by 
self-administered soporifics. Their condition is all 
the more pathetic because they esteem themselves 
progressive. To them progress means re-elections, 
increases of salary, no loss of time, and maintain- 
ing their status on the pension roll. 

Another symptom of decline is their disdainful 
attitude toward professional books and journals. 
This literature emanates from sources that are 
recognized as eminent and yet these teachers affect 
an air of superiority to it all. Nothing seems to 
be quite lofty enough to attain to their altitude. 
If their attention is called to articles or books of 
undoubted value they become supercilious. They 
lack docility and open-mindedness but seem to 
glory in their limitations. They write nothing 
themselves, yet disdain the best that has been 
written. Men and women of note will spend days 
in writing an article that they will not spend 
minutes in reading. Their only gleanings from the 
pedagogical field are what they overhear from the 
conversations of their colleagues and their interest 
in these is of the mildest. They seem to have gone 
on a hunger strike so far as professional reading 
is concerned. Their smug complacency and self- 
satisfaction are never disturbed by any agitation 
touching new methods of teaching. They reck not 
that their pupils must drink from stagnant pools 
instead of running streams. They are critical of 



292 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

the reading of their colleagues, but their own read- 
ing is sparse and desultory. They crave the repu- 
tation of being readers and students, but they are 
not willing to pay the price. When, by chance, 
they read a book they exploit the fact with gusto. 
To them reading seems a luxury rather than a 
necessity. It is inconceivable that teachers of this 
type can be an inspiration to high-school pupils; 
but it is conceivable that such teachers might 
alienate pupils from the school. Such teachers are 
the real trouble with the high school. 

Lack of human qualities. — Again these teachers 
seem to be lacking in the human qualities that 
make for successful dealing with adolescents. They 
lack buoyancy and naturalness. The pupils realize 
that they are somehow different from other men 
and women of the community, and the difference 
is in favor of the others. Their pose seems to have 
become permanent. There is a spiritual lassitude 
in them that repels rather than attracts. Some 
one calls this condition a congestion of the soul. 
It might be thought that teaching is conducive to 
this condition, but for the fact that so many people 
continue to teach for many years and, still, are 
never less than successful human beings. Their 
social consciousness seems dw^arfed and inert, and, 
hence, they are unable to invest their subjects with 
human interest. Any language they may teach 
becomes a dead language — even English— with but 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 293 

small liope of resurrection. Tliey do not connect 
tlieir subjects with tlie life tliat pulsates all about 
tliem, but seem to keep tlieir windows all closed 
to prevent tlie entrance of draughts from the world 
outside. They may have heard of socializing school 
work but it meant nothing to them, and so pro- 
duced no change in the moribund character of 
their teaching. Let no one expend sympathy upon 
them because of what is here written; they will 
have no knowledge of this unless by hear-say and, 
even in that case, they will be all unconscious of 
its application to themselves. 

The picture not overdrawn. — Let it not be 
thought that the foregoing picture is overdrawn; 
far from it. It is really photographic. There is 
no advantage in blinking the facts. Diagnosis must 
precede remedies, and prepare the way for them. 
The dull, listless, mechanical teaching that obtains, 
to some extent, in the high school will not be 
eliminated until the authors of that sort of teach- 
ing are aroused to a consciousness of their short- 
comings. Just how this is to be done has long 
puzzled superintendents, principals, and alert teach- 
ers. Mild measures have not availed, and surgery 
seems necessary in the premises. Possibly, some 
teachers are beyond recall, but we can, at least, 
sound a note of warning to those who are still, 
dynamic, docile, and progressive to the end that 
they may retain these qualities, even against odds, 



294 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

and so assist, in a positive way, in the solution of 
the problem that confronts us. For the solution 
lies with the teacher; there is no alternative. The 
method may be of the best, but it will be ineffective 
unless the teacher gives it potency. 

The energizing teacher. — Over against the fore- 
going dea^l-line teacher is the energizing teacher 
and she is quite as real as her opposite. She 
teaches in a large high school and is far from being 
a myth or a fiction. She is altogether dynamic 
but is never officious or vehement. She is perva- 
sive, unconsciously so, but never obtrusive. She 
exhales power as quietly as the rose exhales fra- 
grance. Her presence is felt with no announcement. 
When she enters the room there is order but not 
dead silence. If her pupils feared her, there would 
be silence; but, respecting her, there is order. She 
makes no profession of friendship for her pupils, 
for that would discredit their understanding. She 
respects their intuition too much for that. She 
neither gushes nor raves, and is never teachery. 
She is a gentle, natural, wholesome human being. 
She never walks on stilts, but down on the ground 
among her pupils. In her presence there is free- 
dom, but never liberty. What she professes is 
never put into words, but shov/s forth in her con- 
duct. Her voice and manner are the same in the 
school-room as in the drawing-room; the same the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PKOBLEM '295 

last hour of the day as the first ; the same on Friday 
afternoon as on Monday morning. 

She is a student and an omnivorous reader but 
never parades the fact. Reading is a part of her 
life the same as eating, sleeping, and breathing; 
hence, any parading of her reading would seem too 
personal. She reads many professional books and 
journals, but does not limit her literary excursions 
to these lines. She knows what enterprises are 
forward in her own city and in the world at large. 
She is cosmopolitan, and not provincial. In pro- 
fessional lines, she reads to good purpose, and 
welcomes every new suggestion. She is never dis- 
satisfied, but ever unsatisfied. Her teaching pro- 
claims her a diligent student of methods, and her 
colleagues consult her as a pedagogical oracle. She 
is no faddist, but always sane and steady, and ever 
moving forward. She never seems hurried, but is 
always busy; and yet never too busy to be gracious 
and amiable. She is neither a snob nor a syco- 
phant, but inspiringly democratic. She never per- 
mits the teacher to subordinate the woman. She 
has large consideration for the other person's point 
of view, and intolerance is foreign to her nature. 
Upon occasion, she indulges in a hearty ringing 
laugh that betokens sincerity, and a generosity of 
spirit that exalts the lesson she is teaching. She 
radiates intelligence and good-cheer so naturally 



296 THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEM 

in her every act and word that it becomes infec- 
tious. Whatever she touches she adorns and 
ennobles. 

The extra touches in life seem her chief joy. 
She finds pleasure in writing a courteous note of 
appreciation to the author of an article that illu- 
mines her path and reciprocal courtesies flow back 
to her. She is recognized as a personage not alone 
by the school but, also, by the entire community. 
She is a factor in both democracies and so helps to 
unify them in their interests and in their activities. 
She is too much a lady to demean herself by nag- 
ging, and she is never querulous either in school 
or in society. She has that quiet dignity, poise, 
pose, and serenity that evoke smiles of welcome 
for her by the school, by homes, and by assem- 
blages of teachers, or citizens. Such a teacher 
lures into the high school many a boy and girl who 
otherwise would stand aloof and when they have 
entered the charmed circle of her influence they 
are glad to remain and to do their utmost in order 
to win her approbation. 

Again, let it be said that the solution of our 
problem comes directly to the teachers. We have 
palatial, and even extravagant, buildings; we have 
supplied equipment even to repletion; in short, we 
exploit externals with much fervor. All these, 
however, are but useful auxiliaries. The}^ do not 
touch the heart of the problem. Just as a home 



THE HIGH SCHOOL PROBLEI^I 297 

does not consist of house, grounds, furniture, 
library, pictures, and other furnishing, so the school 
is better and finer than these externals. The spirit 
of the school is the paramount desideratum; and 
people alone can generate spirit. Nor does the 
stream of spiritual influence rise higher than its 
source. Unless the spirit of the teacher transcends 
all devices, equipment, and lessons, the school suf- 
fers in consequence. It requires the quickening 
influence of the teacher's spirit to give meaning 
and power to all these elements. These externals 
are the body of the school ; the teacher is the soul. 



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